


The Ocean on His Shoulders

by RiseRaptureRise



Series: The Plague of Rapture [3]
Category: BioShock 1 & 2 (Video Games)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Minor Character Death, References to Drugs, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:21:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 77,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25406068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiseRaptureRise/pseuds/RiseRaptureRise
Summary: Two hours ago Jack had been on a plane to visit his cousins in England, now he's at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in a city that should not exist and his only hope of ever seeing the surface again is a voice guiding him through the horror.Things are not all as they seem, however, as the city that shouldn't exist is strangely familiar to him and he seems to always know exactly which way to go.
Series: The Plague of Rapture [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1670662
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16





	1. Come Fly With Me

_Jack Wynand:_   
  
_They told me… son, you’re special. You were born to do great things. You know what? They were right._

* * *

  
_“Excuse me sir, excuse me… excuse me sir, your tray table? Would you kindly-“_  
  
 _“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Cal Franklin, it seems we have a bit of a problem.”_  
  
 _“We’re loosing altitude really fast. Looks like we’re oversped number one and three; there’s smoke coming out fo the panel, and- I got it! Pull up! Pull up! I got it! Pull up!!!”_   
  
Jack Wynand broke the surface of the water, coughing and spluttering as he looked around the wreckage of the Apollo Airways craft. A few pieces floated by, some of the luggage was among that before sinking and then a body burnt to a crisp also floated past.   
  
Jack shuddered and began to swim to the only source of land in the fast of distance of the Atlantic Ocean. A lighthouse. It was a strange place for it to be, there wasn’t any land near by, that it might be signalling to ships. It was just smack bang in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and it wasn’t like any lighthouse Jack had seen before.  
  
After dodging a small explosion from the planes fuel tank, he climbed up the steps of the lighthouse, huge gold doors welcomed him, one of them was slightly ajar. The doors themselves were beautifully ornate and above them was a large golden ‘R’ in the centre of a circle. Cautiously, he pushed the door open, maybe there were more survivors inside, but the inside was pitch black. He couldn’t see a thing, except for the sliver of moon light the open door let in.   
  
“Hello?” He called, coughing some more water out of his lungs, taking a few hesitant steps inside. His sweater was soaking and he took it off, wringing some of the water out of the wool before slipping it back over his head again. “Hello?!” He called once more, sounding more desperate than before.   
  
There had to be survivors. It couldn’t just be him, could it?   
  
As he took a few more steps inside, the door behind him slammed shut. He jumped in alarm, turning around as he was plunged into darkness, but it didn’t last. Lights suddenly flickered on, a distinct sound echoing throughout the empty lighthouse and Jack was once again startled. Inside was a figure, a bust of a man with a sneering face that looked down on all who entered this lighthouse. He was quite an imposing figure, with a large red banner that was tattered and torn, hung in front of him. Even in its damaged condition, the writing was still legible.   
  
“No gods or kings, only man…” Jack read aloud to himself, eyes trailing over the banner   
  
There was a plaque on the front of the bust and Jack read it out of curiosity, it might be able to explain some things. Maybe why the lighthouse was built and who was responsible for it. All it said however, was ‘In what country is there a place for people like me? - Andrew Ryan’.   
  
That didn’t explain much. Jack assumed that the man depicted above him in gold or brass, was this… Andrew Ryan character. Whoever that was, certainly wasn’t someone Jack had heard of.   
  
Curiosity getting the better of him he wandered down the steps, the lights turning on as he wandered. He pushed some of his wet golden hair out of his face, gazing around him at the ornate designs in gold. Around the second room he’d entered were medallions with ornate designs, three of them to be exact. Along with the designs, the medallions each had one word written on them; art, science and industry. It felt like these three things were held in high regard. They were beautiful, this lighthouse in of itself was a work of art, both inside and outside. The brief glimpse Jack had gotten of it.   
  
In the centre of the new room Jack had entered was a bathysphere. It sat with its door open, almost welcomingly, like it was an invitation for him to enter. He wasn’t sure why, but he did enter the sphere. He felt like he was drawn to it, almost like this was what he was supposed to do. Almost like his hand belonged to someone else, he gripped the lever in the centre and pulled it. The door closed and he stumbled a moment, crashing into the red leather seats of the sphere as he began to sink down.   
  
The door of the sphere had a window and Jack stared out of it as numbers flew past; five fathoms, ten fathoms, eighteen fathoms, like a backwards countdown. A projection screen suddenly popped down in front of the window and the lights in the sphere switched off while a film played. Jack could still feel the sphere moving down, but then it suddenly changed direction.  
  
The image on the projection looked like some sort of advertisement. Plasmids by Ryan Industries, it read along with the tag line ‘Incinerate, fire at your finger tips’, but before Jack had a chance to register that piece of information, the image changed again and a voice joined.   
  
The image was of a man, Jack realised it was the same man the bust in the lighthouse depicted, but this time he was smoking a pipe and sitting behind a desk.   
  
_“I am Andrew Ryan, and I am here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?”_ The recording went on and the images changed on the screen that Jack was watching. _“No, says’ the man in Washington, it belongs to the poor. No says the man in the Vatican, it belongs to God. No, says the man in Moscow, it belongs to everyone.”_ The level of disdain in the man’s voice that was speaking was hard to miss. He was talking like all of those ideas were the worst thing someone could do. _“I rejected those answers,”_ he went on. _“Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose…”_   
  
The film cut out and the projector screen rose up to show the sea floor and the walls of a sea trench that Jack’s little sphere was slowly floating over.   
  
_“Rapture.”_   
  
On cue, clearly perfectly timed, a city suddenly came into view. Jack’s eyes widened and he rubbed at them a moment thinking that he was hallucinating what he was seeing, but he wasn’t. It was a city at the bottom of the ocean. A whole city. It looked a bit like New York, the photographs of it that he’d seen at least, but this city was.. so much more impressive then New York.   
  
A whale swam through the the middle of it, even swimming underneath Jack’s little sphere and the man who was speaking, Andrew Ryan, continued.   
  
_“A city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, where the great would not be constrained by the small. And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city, as well.”_   
  
Jack found himself moving around the small cabin like area of the sphere just so he could get a better look at everything. The greeting message was finished and now he could take in the sights without any sort of distractions. The huge towering structures, beautiful Artdeco sculptures lay against the buildings, lights and signs flashed and danced merrily, invitingly teasing the new comer.   
  
He jumped when a voice interrupted his thoughts. This one wasn’t Ryan, however, it sounded Irish and it was speaking through the service radio that sat in a little holder by the door. The man that was speaking wasn’t speaking to Jack, he was speaking to someone else.   
  
He couldn’t hear them very well, but they seemed to be having some sort of argument.   
  
The bathysphere docked into a station after passing under a few rings with the words ‘All good things on this earth flow into the city’, with one of the lights flickering out at the end. Jack stumbled a little when the sphere docked, then it was rising up towards some light.  
  
“I see it!” the man said, the one who’d been arguing with the Irish man. “The sphere, the sphere’s coming up now.”  
  
“Jonny, security’s banging off all over the place, get a move on!” Was the reply.   
  
Jack’s sphere rose to the surface and he stared at the sight before him. It was a man, who had his back to Jack, backing away from… something. Jack couldn’t tell what it was. The thing was humming and it sounded like a woman, but the man, Jonny, was clearly scared of her.   
  
“No trespass…” He pleaded. “Please lady, just let me go… you can have my gun, just don’t hurt me!”   
  
In a split second, the woman had jumped at him, swinging these hooks she was holding at him and she slit his stomach open. Jonny crumpled in on himself, but she wasn’t finished; leaping forward, the thing that sounded like a woman stuck her hooks into him and easily lifted Jonny of the floor. He hung on her hooks, chocking and gaging, blood dripped to the floor and he kicked his legs a little in desperation. It reminded Jack morbidly of a fish on a line, tightening desperately with its inevitable fate.   
  
She then abruptly pulled her hooks out of him, so quick that Jack almost didn’t see the movement and Jonny fell sideway into the water.   
  
He held his breath and stared at this odd creature that was staring back at him, tilting her head this way and that as she crept a bit closer to the sphere.   
  
“Is it someone new?” She purred, before letting out an ear splitting scream and jumping on top of the bathysphere. It rocked around as she attacked it, Jack stumbled around in the sphere, desperately clinging to one of the walls. Some of the wiring burst through the walls and he could hear the hooks being scraped violently across the outer walls of the sphere, while this woman or whatever it was, screamed angrily.   
  
Finally the swaying stopped and it jumped down in front of him. Glancing back at the sphere a moment, before the creature continued walking. Then it suddenly jumped to the ceiling and Jack lost sight of it.   
  
Jack stood where he was, breathing heavily and trying to calm down his beating heart. Where the hell was he? What the hell was that thing? Questions ran through his mind at a mile a minute, he couldn’t seem to be able to grasp one, before another suddenly came out of nowhere.   
  
“Would you kindly pick up that shortwave radio?”  
  
It was like everything stopped. The racing thoughts, the panic and the fear. Jack looked over at the radio and carefully picked it up. This was the only sigh of life in this city that sounded like a human being and not a monster.   
  
“Hello?” Jack called into the radio.   
  
“I don’t know how you survived that plane crash, but I’ve never been one to question Providence,” the speaker said, sounding a little impressed with him. “I’m Atlas and I aim to keep you alive. Now keep on moving, we’re going to need to get you to higher ground.”  
  
“Oh, um… I’m Jack,” he said stupidly, looking up as the door of the bathysphere opened and he gulped a little a bit.   
  
“Nice to meet you, Jack,” Atlas replied calmly, sounding a bit amused at the young mans response. “Now, take a deep breath and step out of the bathysphere.. I won’t leave you twisting in the wind.”   
  
“If you say so…” Jack mumbled to himself, clutching the radio tightly in his hands.   
  
This little radio felt like a life line. As he left the sphere and cautiously stepped around the blood pool that Jonny had left behind, in fact the blood pool was the only thing left of Jonny, the shutters covering the windows ahead lowered. The rest of the city glittered and gleamed, fish swam past and starfish were sticking to the windows.   
  
Scattered around what looked like a train station, but was clearly for the bathyspheres, Jack saw suitcases scattered around the place. A signs also lay scattered at his feet, they looked like protest signs, sentences like ‘Ryan doesn’t own us’ and ‘Rapture is dead’ where written in big, bold, red lettering.   
  
In the corner sat a strange device that looked like a glass cabinet. It was big enough for a person to fit into it and some green almost blue looking electricity running inside it. Crackling and buzzing within the glass case. The words ‘Vita-Chamber’ where written above it and the electricity crackled once more against the glass.   
  
“We’re gonna need to draw her out of hiding. But you’re gonna have to trust me.”  
  
“Jesus!” Jack covered his mouth and glared at the little radio a moment. “Okay…” he mumbled, walking forwards, heading towards what looked like the exit.   
  
A light shined down on one area and it was crumbled in ruin, Jack walked towards it, but jumped when a tv screen above burst and popped.   
  
“I’ll wrap you in a sheet…” the creature purred above him, somewhere. He wasn’t sure where, even as he strained his eyes to see, not a single flicker of movement caught his eye.   
  
“Just a bit further…” Atlas urged him and he stepped a little closer, then out of nowhere she jumped down directly in the light.   
  
Jack was frozen in place as she screamed aggressively at him, it sounded more like a feral growl than an actual scream and in the light he could finally see her face. It was a mess of ugly tissue growth and covered one of her eyes. Blood was leaking out of her nose and mouth, her skin seemed to be a dead grey colour.   
  
“How’d you like that, sister?!”   
  
Jack jumped as Atlas yelled down the radio, a little device suddenly flew in from the ceiling. It trained on the thing in front of him immediately, firing bullets at her and the creature yelled in anger, before climbing up the side of the wall. Using the hooks as it went, the lilting flying security bot chased after her.   
  
“Now, would you kindly find a crowbar or something?” Atlas said, sounding like he was racking his brain for a makeshift weapon. “Blood splicers sealed Jonny in before they…” he choked on the line, sounding distressed and angry. “Goddamn splicers!”  
  
“Thanks for… getting rid of that thing,” Jack spoke into the radio, walking into the light and finding a tool box with a wrench next to it. “I’m sorry about your friend.”   
  
“It’s not your fault, lad,” Atlas said gently. “It was that damn splicer.”  
  
“So.. that thing?” Jack asked as he picked up the wrench, clipping the radio to his belt. “That.. that was a splicer… what? What is a splicer?”   
  
“They were people once…” Atlas said explained, his voice hollow and sad. “I wouldn’t exactly call ‘em people anymore, would you, boyo?”   
  
“No..” He whispered hitting some rock and fallen bit of concrete out of his way, pushing some more parts so he could fit through a small gap that hadn’t been caved in yet. “No I guess not…”   
  
He started to walk up the stairs, but immediately had to dodge a sofa being thrown at him. Whoever had thrown it at him had wanted to make sure it would kill Jack or kill whoever was coming up the stairs because it was also set on fire. There was a feral scream that came with the flying sofa from above and Jack raced up the stairs, only to find a man with a pipe swinging it angrily.   
  
Well, he wasn’t a man anymore, he was one of those.. splicer things. Jack stared in horror at his face. You could see the outlines of a person that was hidden behind the grotesque mutations, but it was hard. The only thing that Jack had to wonder was how someone could do that to themselves. From the way Atlas spoke about the splicers, it sounded like they’d done this to themselves.   
  
The splicer swung the pipe at him and Jack was able to doge it, but just barely.   
  
“You’re gonna have to fight back, lad!” Atlas yelled down the radio. “Ya’ can’t reason with them, the best thing is to put ‘em down!”   
  
Jack winced at the phrasing, but swung out regardless. He cracked the splicer across the jaw with the wrench and while it was stunned, he struck again, three hits to the head and it went down, it didn’t get back up again.   
  
Shakily the young man reached a hand up and wiped some of the blood that had splattered from the head injury he’d inflicted across his face. He blinked at the body while blood pooled around the head, letting out a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding as he stared. He’d just killed someone. Splicer or whatever it was, it was a living, breathing thing.   
  
He couldn’t believe that a few minutes ago he’d been on a plane to England and now he was at the bottom of the Atlantic in a city fighting for his life against things that had once been people. It was insane.   
  
Taking a moment to collect himself, Jack stood up straight and brushed his hair out of his eyes, then continued through to the next door but it wouldn’t open. Even when he tried the door control at the side it still didn’t open. It just sparked blue and white sparks at him, one landed on his hand and he flinched, shaking his hand out to get rid of the tingling feeling.  
  
Jack gazed around the room for a way out. Atlas hadn’t said anything, he’d been quiet, hadn’t even asked if he was okay after just murdering someone. Then again, if this man had been down here… for however long, then maybe killing was just second nature to him. He may not realise or even remember what it felt like to kill someone for the very first time.   
  
Wondering around the room, he walked over to a staircase that lead him to a small balcony. It was even sign posted with a glowing neon sigh reading ‘plasmid’ in bright blue letters.   
  
As he walked the stairs to the top, he found a, well for lack of a better term, vending machine. With two cartoonish little girls standing next to it. A child’s voice suddenly sprang from the machine that was chipped and clearly had water damage, some of the paint was even peeling off.   
  
_“My daddy’s smarter than Einstein, stronger than Hercules and lights the fire with a snap of his fingers! Are you as good as my daddy, mister? Not if you don’t visit the gather’s garden you aren’t!”_   
  
The machine chimed merrily and in the centre of one of its shelves, sat a glowing bottle and a syringe. Jack stared at it, the substance in bottle. It almost looked alive, the thing crackled with power and even seemed to carry some sort of electricity inside of it.   
  
“You’re gonna need that, lad,” Atlas spoke over the radio. “It’s a Plasmid. It’ll give ya’ an edge, it’s the only way to survive down here. Just take that syringe and put it in.”  
  
“I.. what even is a Plasmid,” Jack asked, holding the needle carefully in one hand, while he carefully extracted the glowing liquid. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Atlas.”   
  
“I told you to trust me, didn’t I?” The Irish man reminded him. “Trust me lad, you’re gonna need it to fight against those… monsters. Them splicers won’t just give ya’ a little tap, they’ll crack your skull in. You need it to survive, trust me.”   
  
Jack sighed and shrugged a little, holding the syringe up to his wrist, gazing at the chain tattoos he had there. For a moment he found himself staring at the tattoos. For as long as he could remember he had them, he didn’t even remember when he got them, they were just a part of him. Running his finger over one of the links a moment, he desperately tried to think back to a time when he didn’t have them and came up empty.   
  
Shaking his head, he placed the needle against his skin, just over the vein. Muttering a quiet ‘here goes nothing’, he slipped the needle in, wincing at the pinch and pain he felt, but it was nothing compared to what came next. A burning sensation crawled up his arm and he yanked the needle out. He didn’t even have time to think about it bleeding, before his hand began to twitch and spasm. With his other hand he gripped at his wrist, watching as his hand’s fingers seemed to dislocate and relocate themselves and he couldn’t stop the groans of pain that began to turn into screams as the burning sensation raced along his arm and through his body, all the way into his other arm.   
  
“Steady now!” Atlas’s voice came through the radio, he was amazing that he could still hear it over the sound of his own screaming and then the sound of electricity as blue sparks appeared out of his finger tips.   
  
Those blue sparks soon became huge arching trails of electricity, even his veins began to glow blue and hum with the power. Pulsing and sparking between blue and white, alternating in their intensity and Jack was screaming once more. Either from the pain or the panic of just what the hell was happening to him, he wasn’t too sure, but Atlas continued. Like he was talking him through a gentle doctor’s procedure and not the agonising torture this was.   
  
“Your genetic code is being rewritten,” Atlas went on. “Just hold on and everything will be fine!”   
  
Jack sorely wanted to believe him, but the pain was just too much. He gripped onto the balcony’s metal banister, which was probably a stupid idea and then toppled over the edge. Screaming as he fell headfirst to the floor below, hitting it hard enough to knock himself unconscious, the rippling and sparking sounds of electricity the last thing he heard.   
  
He didn’t know how long he was unconscious for, vaguely he heard people above him talking, the sound of footsteps, but it all sounded echoing and far away. Like he was underwater.  
  
Wasn’t that a funny comparison? Jack’s confused and frazzled brain helped him out. Because you are underwater. Get it? Funny!   
  
He would’ve laughed, but it hurt to move. He was able to open his eyes and found two splicers looking over him, having a conversation with each other.   
  
“This little fish looks like he’s just had his cherry popped! Wonder if he’s still got some ADAM on him…”   
  
Jack let his eyes close again and a sound like low groaning was heard in the far distance. It reminded him of the whale he’d seen earlier, only this time the ground shook and vibrated with the noise.   
  
“D’ya hear that? Let’s bug!”  
  
“Weak! You’re a weak, chopper!”   
  
“This little fish ain’t worth towin’ it with no Big Daddy.”  
  
“Yellow, always have been!” The splicer turned back to Jack and grinned at him. “You’ll be no better with the metal Daddy, little fish… see you floating in the briny…”   
  
His eyes slipped closed again and time passed by, he wasn’t too sure how much, but when he opened his eyes again, he found a huge metal foot landing directly in front of him. Then a drill came into his vision, an industrial size one.   
  
“Look, Mister Bubbles,” a little girls voice sounded and the same child crept around this creature, pointing at him. Her skin was grey and she seemed to have glowing yellow eyes. “It’s an angel,” she went on, her voice sounding echoey and far away. “I can see light coming from his belly…” she took a few steps closer and that’s when he saw the giant needle she was holding in her tiny hands. “Wait a minute- he’s still breathing!” She jumped away and the huge mental monster with her seemed concerned for a moment but she calmed him down. “It’s alright, I know he’ll be an angel soon…”  
  
He couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer and they slipped close once more.   
  
Time passed by again and Jack wasn’t sure how much, but when he next opened his eyes the littler girl and the thing with her was gone.  
  
Slowly, Jack began to get to his feet, using one of the wall supports as a support for himself. He pulled himself up onto shaking legs, gripping the support a moment longer while he regained his bearings. Looking around the room to see that it was just as he’d left it. No sign of any of the other creatures that he’d seen. They were gone for now.   
  
“You all right, boyo?” Atlas asked over the radio. “First time Plasmid’s a real kick from a mule. But…” Jack slowly raised his left hand and stared at it, electricity crackled and sparked from his finger tips, to one another in small blue arches. “They’s nothing like a fist full of lightening, now is there?”  
  
He didn’t reply, he could only stare at his hand as the electricity danced between his finger tips. Glancing up at the door control once more, he sent a blast or lightening out of his hand and the door opened up to reveal a long corridor.   
  
“Huh…” he frowned a little, a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “That works I guess.”   
  
After that he was running again. He almost got killed when the tail end of the plane he’d been on crashed into the long glass corridor he was running down. Water had began to pour in almost instantly and Jack had to climb through the plane and run as quick as he could, while another tunnel collapsed and water started to pour in from all angles.   
  
He eventually ran to an area that sealed off the water, it looked like it had once been a lounge and was now turned into a makeshift home. There was a body in the corner and old matter too and a glowing blue syringe that Atlas explained was an ‘Eve Hypo’, the thing that allowed you to still use the Plasmids. The power source. Jack was forced to fight a few more splicers, Atlas helpfully telling him to use the combo ‘one two punch, zap em’ and then whack em’!’ He was quick to use this technique and it proved useful. The splicers were both stunned and it allowed him to use his wrench on an unmoving target. He could make the death quicker, but it was still messy.   
  
Eventually Jack found himself in a huge room. It was tall, with multiple elevators leading to different floors. One of these elevators was sent flying down with a splicer inside and miraculously the splicer had survived the fall and attacked Jack. He was able to deal with it, even though the splicer was on fire while it tried to kill him and once Jack hit him with his wrench he was once again able to take in the room.   
  
Banners in red and green hung down from the roof, golden lettering was stitched into each other them, celebrating different things like ‘individuality’ and ‘creativity’, among other things.   
  
He made his way to the elevator, wincing when a piece of debris fell from the roof and smashed the glass move the lill alcove where the elevators where situated. He pressed the glowing green ‘up’ button, before leaning against the back wall of the elevator, taking a moment to catch his breath and try to collect his thoughts. Or at least try and make some sense of what was going on and what he was seeing.   
  
Atlas’s voice came over the radio again, Jack tore it from his hip and held it up to his ear so he could listen to him as the elevator steadily took him up to the top floor it reached.   
  
“Listen,” Atlas began, his voice sounding desperate and even pleading as he spoke. “I’ve got a family. I need to get them out of here. But the splicers have cut me off from them. If you can reach them in Neptune’s Bounty, then maybe, just maybe….” He sighed a moment and began to reason with him. “I know you must feel like the unluckiest man in the world right now, but you’re the only hope I’ll ever see my wife and child again. Go to Neptune’s Bounty… find my family… _please_.”   
  
“I’ll help you, Atlas…” Jack replied, as the elevator opened and he stepped out. “I’ll help you, I promise.”   
  
He heard a sigh of relief over the line and Atlas’s grateful voice came over the radio. “Thank you, Jack.. thank you so much!”  
  
Jack smiled a little to himself, slipping the radio back on his hip, spotting a splicer leaning over a baby carriage. His thoughts immediately went to panic. Oh dear god what if there was a child in that carriage? What was that splicer going to do to it?!   
  
Without a second thought he electrocuted the splicer and hit it with his wrench, only to find that sitting in the carriage was a gun of all things. Still, as weird as that was, a gun was a gun. It would help keep him alive and he quickly snatched it up, checking to find it had a full round inside.   
  
“Plasmids changed everything,” Atlas explained, sounding grave. “They destroyed out bodies, our minds… we couldn’t handle it,” Jack glanced at the body of the female splicer that now lay next to him as Atlas continued painting his grizzly picture. “Best friends butchering one another, babies strangled in cribs. The whole city went to hell.”  
  
Jack turned back to look around the small walk way he was standing in. Advertisements littered the place, smiling faces on every one that seemed to say this city’s going places. That there was a future and even though everything was decaying and falling apart, its intricate designs had stayed in place. He could see the beauty underneath the grime and bloodshed. Jack could see what this city had once been before… whatever had happened, happened.   
  
Atlas’s explanations were short at best and vague at worst. It didn’t explain how the city was allowed to get like this, why the Plasmids had still been available and were still being advertised even now. There was a story behind this city, a story that Jack was certain would be filled with pain and loss. Just looking around him he could see that the people or whatever was left of the people here were suffering.   
  
He looked back at the towering structure once more, turned to the dead body on the ground again, before glancing at the way he was going. The bright lights advertising something called the Kashmir Restaurant lay before him. Blood was splattered across the sign and the door.  
  
Jack stared at it and before he continued on his journey, he could only wonder; what happened here? He was sure he’d find out soon enough, but call him crazy, he already felt like he wasn’t going to like the answer.

* * *

  
_Andrew Ryan,_   
  
_Rapture stands or falls:_   
  
_Atlas and his bandits are on the run, but Rapture faces a new enemy now. Moments ago our shield of secrecy was pierced by the crash landing of an unknown aircraft. Even now, one of the survivors infiltrates the lighthouse. He must be found, and eliminated! Andrew Ryan calls on each of you now to take hold of the Great Chain! Tonight, Rapture stands or falls by your hand!_


	2. The Ocean on his Shoulders

_Clayton Lokken,_   
  
_At all costs:_   
  
_I’ve found my mum again, she’d worked out that Fontaine and Atlas were the same person- when he.. he killed the nice lady. The one who asked me if I trusted Atlas and god I wish I never did. I wish I never trusted Fontaine either! He’s a monster. The things he’s done and.. and got people to do- this war… Ryan started it but Fontaine added fuel to the fire. He wants it to go on… until he wins, until he comes out on top._   
  
_Reminds me of the school, they were taught not to feel empathy or.. pity for anyone else and to win at all costs. Taught that, it didn’t matter how you won so long as you did. The winning was all that mattered, no matter the cost. It’s not costing Ryan or Fontaine anything, they’re still breathing, but everyone else… O’Riley’s dead. Reggie’s dead. Limey’s dead. Bill, Diane, Suchong, Sullivan, Rosa all dead. Eleanor… turned into a Little Sister, so was Marsha! They… they don’t even care! They’ll tear the city apart just so one of them can win and.. win what in the end? What will be left to win once the dust settles? The city’s falling apart, if it isn’t dead already, it might as well be._

* * *

  
After doing the only two splicers in that were living in the Kashmir, Jack took a moment to marvel at the place. When he’d first entered the old restaurant he could see what this place had once been. He also saw the reminiscence of a party for new year of 1959, masks were also lying about the floor. They were old masquerade masks, he picked one up and held it up for him to examine. They were made out old paper mâché, which somehow hadn’t been damaged from the time it had been lying on the floor. A splash of blood was located on the corner of it and the colours that had once been vibrant were now faded with decay and a little bit of water damage.   
  
He carelessly let the mask fall back to the ground, noticing a pile of cash in the kitchen he grabbed it, stuffing it in his pockets. Atlas had briefly mentioned scavenging the corpses for supplies, bullets and health kits, EVE hypos and money. He explained that some of the vending machines still worked around the city and Jack could purchase some ammo if he was running low.  
  
Wandering back into the main part of the restaurant he froze at the sight of two splicers, walking around the destroyed statue of Atlas from the myths. Around the floor of the statue, water had spread out, just reaching over the splicer’s boots and shoes as they walked around, oblivious to him.  
  
“If you spot a Splicer in the water, hit ‘em with the Electro Bolt,” Atlas said over the radio.  
  
Jack was curious as to how the man knew exactly what he was looking at or where he was, but he shrugged it off. Instead he aimed for the water with his electrified hand, a huge arch of electricity flew through the air and struck the water. He watched as the splicers shook and screamed, teeth clattering together as they performed a morbid dance, before slumping to the watery floor.   
  
He wondered over to them and after searching to find another health kit and a few bullets, Jack noticed something on one of the tables. It seemed to shine in the dim light that the city’s many electric signs gave off. Almost beckoning him and calling out to him.   
  
Reaching for it, he found it was some sort of recording device. There was a name and a title on the top of the recording, a way to catalog, Jack supposed, especially if there were more around the city. It might give him some clues as to just what the hell happened here. What was so bad and awful, besides these Plasmids, that could’ve torn the city to shreds.   
  
His thumb rested over the button to make the recording go and he pushed it down. The tape suddenly whirred to life, he could hear music playing in the background, it sounded like a party was going on. Then a woman started to speak, but she didn’t sound like she was enjoying the party despite how drunk she obviously was.   
  
_“Another New Year’s, another night alone. I’m out, and you’re stuck in Hephestus, working. Imagine my surprise. I just guess I’ll have another drink… here’s a toast to Diane McClintock, silliest girl in Rapture. Silly enough to fall in love with Andrew Ryan, silly enough to- “_   
  
An explosion cut through the woman’s rant, this Diane McClintock and Jack looked up at the damaged Atlas statue. He stared at the twisted and damaged metal. The obvious signs that there had been an explosion, while shouts and cries of people sounding angry and victorious played through the speakers. They shouted two names; Atlas and Ryan. Declaring their loyalty for Atlas and their hatred for Ryan as they plowed through the people.   
  
Suddenly Diane’s frightened and confused voice came through the speakers once more and Jack looked down, a frown falling across his face as he listened to her.   
  
_“What… what happened… I’m bleeding… oh, God… what’s happening…”_   
  
The tape cut out and Jack gently placed the recording back down on the table. He stared at it for a few more minutes, before deciding to head back upstairs. Another splicer was waiting for him and she tried to attack him, but Jack used the trick Atlas had taught him. He didn’t like doing it, especially when the female splicer had shrieked at him, asking if he’d stolen her baby. He supposed killing her was a mercy.   
  
Making his way through, Jack yelped as a pair of glowing eyes suddenly appeared in a vent, before slowly disappearing back into the darkness. He stared a few moments longer, his hand reaching down for his wrench, but whatever it was had disappeared and didn’t look like it was coming back up again.  
  
He let out a shaky breath before turning to his only exit, which was the bathroom.   
  
Deciding not to take any chances, he wondered into the one marked ‘Dames’ first, just to make sure there was no one inside that would jump him. At the end of the room there was another recording device. He idly picked it up and hit play once more like he had with Diane’s.   
  
_“Hey, Brenda! You care to tell me why you’ve had a hole in the wall the size of Plymouth Rock coming out of your crapper going on three weeks now? Now, I ain’t saying I’m Shakespeare, but I’m trying to run a respectable theatre. I got working folk coming in from Port Neptune trying to catch a little diversion… and all they can think about is the stink coming out of your shitter. Get it fixed.”_  
  
Jack wrinkled his nose a little at the audio diary left behind by a Steve Barker. The man didn’t sound like he was the friendliest of people.   
  
He turned to leave, but froze in place as a white fuzzy look fell over the bathroom. A woman was standing in front of him, leaning against the sink, she was running her fingers across her face. She was white and fuzzy too, like the room was and then Jack could hear a voice speak.  
  
 _“Spliced up, I’m too spliced up… now nobody’s gonna want me…”_   
  
And just as soon as she appeared, she vanished.   
  
He blinked a few times and rubbed at his eyes. The city couldn’t be getting to him already could it? He wasn’t going crazy was he? Just what the hell was that? A ghost? A phantom? It felt.. it felt real, like a memory…. But wasn’t that all a ghost was? A memory of something or some event that the building wasn’t ready to let go of yet. Looking around Rapture, Jack felt like many ghosts would haunt this city’s halls.   
  
As he began walking round to the other side, looking for this previously mentioned ‘hole in the wall’ so he could get out, a splicer jumped out of the bathroom stall, knocking him over. Jack crashed to the floor, narrowly dodging a pipe to the head as the splicer screamed at him.   
  
Jack flicked his wrist out and shot the splicer with his plasmid, before quickly slamming the wrench into its head. Blood splattered across his face, but he was starting to get used to it. Becoming accustomed with the violence that he was having to do in order to survive this place. He wiped the blood away with the sleeve of his sweater, before continuing on the journey and yeah, there was a hole in the wall.   
  
He made his way through, crouching down and sneaking past the rubble and debris. He was above the theatre, staring down he saw what looked like a little girl sitting by a corpse. She had some sort of tool with her and Jack stared at her, walking slowly towards the lighting fixtures for the stage lights. One of which was pointed at the little girl, haloing her and her grizzly task in a warm yellow light. Almost like it was showcasing her act as a performance for him to watch.   
  
“Careful now,” Atlas whispered to him through the radio. “Would you kindly lower that weapon for a minute?”  
  
Jack did as he was told, he had no reason to doubt Atlas. So far everything the man had done was to help him and keep him alive. The man wanted to get out of here himself, he said so and he had a family that he was trying to get to.   
  
“You think that’s a child down there?” He continued as Jack carefully began to navigate his way across the lighting fixtures, as there was no other way for him to get around. “Don’t be fooled. She’s a Little Sister now,” Atlas explained. “Somebody went and turned a sweet baby girl into a monster. Whatever you thought of about right and wrong on the surface, well that don’t count for much down in Rapture,” Jack had by now safely made it across and was now staring through the glass at the little girl. Her grey skin and glowing eyes contrasting against the dirty pink dress she wore. She was humming a song, though Jack didn’t know it. “Those Little Sisters, they carry ADAM- the genetic material that keeps the wheels of Rapture turning. Everybody wants it; everybody needs it.”   
  
As if to prove his point a splicer entered the theatre and the girl turned to stare at it. Jack could only watch on in horror. He desperately wanted to get in and help the child, he didn’t care what Atlas said, this would be the one time he would disagree with t the man. How could he just dismiss a child’s life so easily? Especially since he was a father himself.   
  
The splicer raised his finger to his lips, a universal sign for her to be quiet, but she didn’t listen. Screaming loudly and the splicer jumped at her, hitting her hard across the head with the butt of his pistol.   
  
Jack slammed his fist against the window, but it wasn’t heard over the ear shattering roar that suddenly filled his ears. It was so loud he was forced to take a few steps away from the window blocking him and covered his ears. He watched as this huge thing, this creature or giant, jumped down from up high and charged the splicer. It was huge, at least a good two feet over the splicer and it used its size and weight against the creature.   
  
Slamming the splicer into the wall, before powering up the drill it had on its arm to drill through the splicer’s stomach. Jack winced as he watched the splicer’s organs get churned up and blended, but this beast had decided that wasn’t enough. It threw the splicer at the window, before grabbing its head and slammed it against the glass repeatedly until it broke through the glass and carelessly let the splicer’s body drop.   
  
“That’s the Big Daddy,” Atlas explained gravely as the aptly named creature beckoned to the girl and she eagerly followed it. “She gathers ADAM, he keeps her safe.”   
  
Jesus Christ… what the hell had he got himself into? He’d only been on that plane to see his cousins in England and now.. now he was here. He was fighting against creatures that had mutated and changed themselves. These once people and now nightmares who prowled the streets looking for little girls who sang haunting songs and were watched over by brutal guardians that would tear a man apart.   
  
His legs moved of their own accord, taking him where he needed to go and he battled with several splicers as he went. One of them had been able to catch him with a bin of all things, winding him a moment. He’d dodge the pipe swing that shortly followed, but just barely. It grazed him and he winced in paint before fighting back with his plasmid hand and then the wrench. It was messy, bloody work, but it got the job done.   
  
He made his way down some steps, jumped another part that had once been steps, but they’d obviously collapsed. Walking through towards one of the exits that said ‘Neptune’s Bounty’, the same place that Atlas’s family where hiding, but he didn’t get far. A turret suddenly appeared out of the floor and alarms went off around him.  
  
“It’s Ryan! Goddamn Andrew Ryan!” Atlas yelled, the anger and frustration clear in his voice, but also the hatred for the man. Jack heard that clear as day. “Dammit!”   
  
“Atlas?” Jack said uneasily as splicers began pouring into the room.   
  
He shot a few of them and was able to electrocute a few more. Snatching one of the EVE hypos out of his pocket and jamming it into his vein, powering up his Plasmid again. A bullet clipped his arm and he span around with the force, stumbling and pulling back in a grimace, but he was able to make short work of the splicer afterwards.   
  
“He’s shut off all access to Neptune. There’s another way to get there… head to Medical!” Jack span around helplessly looking for it and found another exit opposite the one for Neptune with the word ‘Medical Pavilion’, “What are you waiting for?” Atlas cried. “Go!”   
  
Not needing to be told twice, he bolted as fast as he could. Jack was clutching at his arm as it bled from the bullet, which might of done more than grazed him. He climbed over fallen pillars and dodged some more support beams that were hanging from the ceiling, lights and alarms blaring around him.  
  
The airlock was in sight and he felt a smile pull at his lips, but just as his foot touched the first step, the door slid close.   
  
“Ah, Christ! You’re trapped!” He heard his only companion on the other end panic a moment. “Gonna try to override the exit from here!”   
  
Atlas abruptly cut out and behind him, Jack heard the sound of a television coming on. He turned to see a black and white image with what he assumed was Rapture’s logo and the words; Standby written across it, then an image of a man in a hat pulled over his eyes appeared. The name Ryan was in the corner and Jack didn’t need any sort of introduction to know who this was. The light of the television was the only light in the room, it blinded him a moment because of how bright it was, he even had to raise his hand to shield his eyes.   
  
“So tell me, friend… which one of the bitches sent you?”   
  
The voice snarled. It was the same voice Jack had heard in the bathysphere, the one that spoke about how perfect Rapture would be, the voice of Andrew Ryan.   
  
“The KGB wolf? Or the CIA jackal? Here’s the news: Rapture isn’t some sunken ship for you to plunder and Andrew Ryan isn’t a giddy socialite who can be slapped around by government muscle. And with that, farewell, or Dasvadinya. Whichever you prefer.”   
  
The image left the screen and Jack was plunged into darkness once again, save for the blaring alarm lights. He clutched at his shoulder, hearing the sound of footsteps, he glanced over and saw three splicers run towards the glass that separated Jack from the television.  
  
They began to beat on the glass, using their hands and pipes. Jack stared at them in horror, looking back at the air lock, before looking back at the glass.   
  
“Atlas?” He whispered, feeling the panic starting to course through his veins. He was cornered, there was nowhere else that he could go. “ _Atlas_!”  
  
“I’ve got it!” Atlas cried over the radio and Jack turned around to see the air lock opening up. “Get out of there! Get out now!”  
  
He didn’t need to be told twice. Jack ran through the opened air lock, just as the glass broke and the splicers came piling in. He slammed the door shut and the air lock automatically locked itself. He rested his head against it, taking a few deep breaths as he heard the splicers on the other side screaming and clawing at the air lock. Thankfully, for however mutated they were, even they couldn’t claw through metal.   
  
After he took a moment to collect himself, Jack continued on through his journey, the radio out his hip sprang to life again with Atlas’s voice. He sounded angry and bitter when he spoke.  
  
“Now you’ve met Andrew Ryan, the bloody King of Rapture,” Jack found it ironic considering all the banners he’d seen declaring that no kings would exist in this city. “Now find your way to Emergency Access.”   
  
Jack made his way around the area, a fallen sign saying ‘Medical Pavilion’ hung over a receptionist desk. A set of stairs were either side leading up to a balcony that had another door, but it was shut off by a gate. A body was resting on the other side of it, looking rotten and decayed.   
  
As he explored he found another recording device next to a dead body and Jack wondered if this receptionist had been the one to record it, but when he picked it up, he found Diane’s name on it once more. Just the same as before, he was curious and found himself leaning against the only receptionist desk and pressing play on the recording device.   
  
_“Doctor Steinman said he’d release me today. Ryan didn’t come to see me since the New Year’s attack. Not once. But Doctor Steinman was very attentive. He told me that once the scar tissue was gone, he was going to fix me right up. Make me prettier than any girl I’ve ever seen. He’s sweet all right… and interested in my case!”_   
  
Diane sounded so hopeful on the diary, at the chance of her face being restored. Jack even found himself smiling sadly at the tone, wondering just what had happened to her. If her face had been fixed by this Doctor she mentioned. Was she happy with it? Had it been what she’d wanted?  
  
He put it back down and headed through to emergency access, battling with little bot that was blocking the way and finding out that he could hack it. It was useful too, because no sooner had he hacked the flying turret, he got attacked by a splicer. The turret made quick work of the splicer, bullets poured out of it and they ripped through the splicer’s body. It never stood a chance, dropping dead on the floor.   
  
The bathysphere was sealed off, so Jack took the set of metal stairs to the control panel up top, finding another diary resting next to it. He picked it up and read the name at the top of the recording device, this one had the name ‘Emilie Lokken’ printed on the top of it. Pressing play once more, he wondered if it would give any clues as to what this panel was, like the one in the bathroom had hinted towards the hole in the wall.   
  
Another woman’s voice came through the speaker, she had a distinct accent, she wasn’t American. She sounded Northern European, but Jack wasn’t entirely sure where from.   
  
_“So Rapture… a city at the bottom of the ocean- honestly I couldn’t believe it at first. Figured it was just a pretty fantasy, but here we are. It’s an engineering wonder. I wasn’t part of the crew who built it but I’m now responsible for keeping it going. Accommodation is lacking but give it time and I’ll be moving up in the world. Pappa would’ve loved this place… wish he could’ve been here to see it.”_   
  
Not much clues there then, but she sounded sad at the end. Almost like she was choking back tears, her father had clearly died and it must still be fresh in her mind, but she sounded impressed and amazed with Rapture. Jack could understand that feeling, he felt the same when he saw it for the first time. From the outside at least. When he saw what the city had become that wonder and amazement had turned into shock and horror.   
  
He placed the recording down, before looking over the control panel and finding the one for emergency access. Pulling it, but nothing happened except for a woman’s voice to come over the speaker and telling him everything was in lockdown due to a security protocol.  
  
“If you want to use the Emergency Access, you’ll be needing Doctor Steinman’s key,” Atlas explained, presumably watching Jack once more. It was nice to know someone had his back in this nightmare. “He’s the one who runs this place. But I don’t expect him to hand it to you out of the milk of human kindness. Steinman ain’t that kind, and frankly, I’m not even sure he’s still human.”   
  
Jack frowned, turning as a door opened behind him, pulling his revolver out as well as the radio. “But he’s a doctor?”   
  
A splicer lept at him from the shadows, but he shot her a few times and she fell to the floor, Atlas on the radio laughed almost bitterly.   
  
“Yeah lad, he was. Though, you’ll come to learn that the word ‘doctor’ down in Rapture don’t always mean ‘caregiver’.”   
  
He frowned at the man’s words, walking down the long industrial corridor filled with panels and dials. He wondered if that Lokken woman had worked here at one time, standing in this very corridor and going over all the dials and panels. Making sure everything was in working order and nothing was out of place. She’d probably jot it down on a notepad or maybe she’d record like she had that other message.   
  
Jack found it almost relaxing and a nice distraction to think about the people he listened to on the recordings. They were telling a story, their story and Jack could imagine their outcomes. He could even try to picture what they looked like, if they were tall or short. Blonde or a brunette. Did they have brown eyes or green?   
  
At the end of the corridor he found a machine gun lying next to a control panel. It was fully loaded too and he thanked whatever god was watching over him now for this. The pistol he had and the wrench where useful, but he had a feeling this would be even better than those flimsy tools.   
  
The machine gun had been lying next to another control panel and he pulled the leaver. No sooner had he, but the gate blocking his way into the medical pavilion pulled away and an alarm went off.   
  
“Oh you’ve got to be…” his thoughts were interrupted by the screams of outrage and yells across from him. He strained his eyes to see properly, but Atlas as always was there to add a helpful comment.  
  
“Now you’ve rattled the monkey cage. Here they come.”   
  
And yes, they certainly did. Splicers dressed in doctors uniforms and the remains of what once would’ve been stylish dresses and a nurses uniforms came running towards him.   
  
“I’m the star not you!”  
  
“Look at your flesh, you’re crawling!”   
  
“Uncivil, uncouth, uncultivated!”  
  
“Parasite!”   
  
Jack’s little bot he still had with him flew down to start shooting them, while Jack took the stairs and caught up with it, using the machine gun and like he’d expected, it worked like a dream. It cut through the splicers just like the bot he had did. On a nearby table he even found another lot of machine gun rounds, snatching those up and quickly reloading.   
  
He’d need to find a bag or something soon, so he could carry all of this stuff. There was another medical kit too and another recording device. This one had the name Doctor J.S.Steinman written on it and once all the splicers were clear, Jack picked it up and listened to it. He supposed he should get an idea of what kind of man he was looking for before he went after him. It might give him some clues.   
  
_“Ryan and ADAM, ADAM and Ryan… All those years of study, and was I ever truly a surgeon before I met them? How we plinked away with out scalpels and toy morality. Yes, we could lop a boil here, and shave down a beak there, but… but could we really change anything? No. But ADAM gives us the means to do it. And Ryan frees us from the phony ethics that held us back. Change your look, change your sex, change your race. It’s yours to change, nobody else’s.”_   
  
Dropping the recording on the table once more, Jack felt a shudder go down his spine. Seemed Atlas was right, but the man hadn’t been wrong yet, so Jack wasn’t sure why he was doubting him. The word ‘doctor’ didn’t mean ‘caregiver’ and that recording had proven that much. It wasn’t so much what the man said, though there were plenty of things that made Jack frown in concern, but there was also the way he said it. A tone in his voice that somehow screamed that these people he was talking about… they weren’t really people to him.   
  
Jack shook his head and continued on, walking up the steps and thankfully finding a back that he could store some things in and carry with him. It was a satchel, worn out and brown leather, but it would do. He put the few health kits in his new bag, as well as the two EVE hypos he’d also collected. His pistol also fit nicely inside and his wrench, but he kept the radio attached to his belt. He was surprised that he didn’t find it all that heavy. His speed didn’t change at all.  
  
Walking up to the door of the the medical pavilion, he froze as again another woman in fuzzy white appeared before him. It was hazy and fuzzy, almost like a bad television set was playing and he watched as she banged on the door to the medical centre. Her fingers dragging and clawing at the door as she wailed in despair.   
  
_“You promised me pretty, Steinman, you promised me pretty… Now look at me. Look at me!”_   
  
She slowly dissolved and he rubbed at his eyes, trying to clear away anymore of the fuzziness, feeling a cold touch at the nape of his neck. He shuddered and stepped up to the door, pressing the button at the side to let himself in.   
  
The light overhead flickered on, Jack moved to step in side, but stopped at the sight that lay before him.   
  
Pictures of women were pinned on the wall, all being mismatched and turned into a bizarre collage and decor. Surgical scissors were pinned on the wall, a gurney lay strewn in front of them with a box on in that contained more images that hadn’t been pinned to the wall yet. One of the recording devices was pinned on the wall by the surgical scissors and on the floor, written in blood, were the ironic words of ‘above all do no harm’ signed by the very man Jack was looking for.   
  
Above him the light flickered and casted shadows across the floor and the dirty tiles. The young man was frozen, his eyes desperately telling him that what he was seeing was real, but his mind didn’t want to believe it. How could someone… do this? Whatever it was, it felt like this little greeting was simply the beginning. Only a taste of what this Steinman was capable of, wherever he was and this time he wouldn’t be doing it on pictures, but real people.   
  
“You keep an eye peeled for Steinman,” Atlas told him. “The daft bastard’s set up shop in the surgery wing. You wanna find him, just follow the blood.”

* * *

  
_Doctor J.S.Steinman,_   
  
_Limits of Imagination:_   
  
_I am beautiful, yes. Look at me, what could I do to make my features finer? With ADAM and my scalpel, I have been transform. But is there not something better? What if now it is not my skill that fails me… but my imagination?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part two! Updates are gonna be a bit slow because I'm back at work and it's entertaining juggling everything, but I'm still quite far ahead so I'm not worried. 
> 
> Anyway, Jack is.. really hard to write, surprisingly. So, this is my interpretation of him, I know I have him talking but I think Jack would've spoken in the original game if they had a voice actor for him so... still, enjoy!


	3. I've Heard that Song Before

_Clayton Lokken,_   
  
_The Best liar:_   
  
_So we’ve been hiding out round Rapture. Have to keep moving, Fontaine is still after us, but Ryan isn’t concentrating on us now. He still wants to kill Atlas- Fontaine, gotta remember that… but it’s so hard… He’s a good actor, got us fooled… made my Mum and me actually think he cares, but I guess he forgot one crucial thing about that. The best liars always tell the truth._

* * *

  
Jack decided very quickly that he hated the medical pavilion. He’d had Atlas guiding him and it made the journey slightly easier, but after dealing with all manner of splicers and listening to all of Steinman’s twisted recordings. Listening to a man steadily go insane and see his grizzly work and messages around the area, it put Jack in a bad head space, He hated it. Hated everything about it.   
  
Probably the most disturbing thing was how a place like a hospital had tuned into a slaughter house, with the carcasses just laid out for you to stumble across.   
  
He’d found Steinman and chased him, but he’d used some explosives to block his path. Jack stared at the debris blocking his path. He couldn’t move it with his bare hands, he did try, but nothing move it. Then Atlas’s voice came over the radio again.   
  
“You’ll have to find some way to get through to surgery… and Steinman. Chin up, now. The Lord hates a quitter.”   
  
To top it all off, after Steinman gave that message, another splicer had appeared on a balcony and started to throw explosives at him.   
  
Jack had been forced to quickly duck and cover.   
  
“I can hear that splicer sounding off like it’s the 4th of July,” Atlas grumbled down the line. “Explosives are hard to come by down here, but if you can get your hands on one of them Telekinesis Plasmid, you could catch the damn firebombs and toss it right back in his gob… or anything else that might be standing in your way.”   
  
Great. More Plasmids and genetic splicing. Why did he feel like this was to be a bad thing?   
  
Still the splicing he had done didn’t seem to be bothering him too much and after finding out where the telekinesis plasmid was kept he made his way down, only to be faced with another problem. A huge wall of ice.   
  
“You have got to be…” Jack stared at it, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Seriously? Anything in this city that’s not broken?”  
  
“You need to get your hands on that incinerate plasmid. Should melt that ice away right quick.”  
  
“More splicing…” Jack mumbled going a little pale. Atlas had said the splicers had spliced and look what happened to them. “Atlas I’m not sure I want to… to…” he swallowed nervously. “What happens if I end up like the splicers?”   
  
“You won’t, boyo. That was years of plasmid abuse that did that to them. You do this, we’ll be out of here soon and you won’t have any lasting damage. It’s if you keep going, that’s where it goes wrong.”   
  
“How come you never spliced?”   
  
“Couldn’t afford to lad. I had more important things to get like food and pay bills fer me family. Those plasmids didn’t never come cheap.”  
  
“Okay…” Jack nodded making his way back up stairs. “And I guess it’s too dangerous for you to go out and get some now?”  
  
“Everyone’s spliced to high heaven down here. I’d never stand a chance, though I know me way around the city well enough to avoid crowded areas,” he paused a moment. “You might wanna head to the crematorium. They’ll have some incincerate there. I’m sure of it.”  
  
“Got it, I’m making my way there..” He said looking down at the floor to see more messages, this time in black paint, saying things like Steinman kills and don’t go in. Looks like some people had tried their best to protect others, but maybe the splicers were too far gone to really understand what it meant. Or maybe they simply didn’t see them.   
  
After a brief encounter with another splicer that had explosives, Jack made his way through, but had to once again hide from a security camera. The one was different to the others. It had a red light and it seemed Atlas had noticed it as well because he was quick to inform him.   
  
“Security cameras. I can hear the infernal things all around ya’. Ryan’s eyes and ears.”   
  
Using Electrobolt on the camera, like Atlas had told him to do with the turrets, he was able to shut it down. Then safely make his way upstairs to an office area that contained the plasmid he was looking for. He was forced to crawl through to it, but once he was inside, Ryan’s voice echoed all around him on the intercom system.  
  
 _“A parasite wanders the halls. We rebuild our city and the doubters send a fly to spoil our ointment. One thousand ADAM to the man or woman who pins its wings.”_  
  
Four splicers surrounded the office in no time and Jack took this moment to see how good the incinerate plasmid truly was. Turned out it was very good.   
  
He was able to burn all four splicers alive and winced at the smell of burning flesh. He tried to block out their screams as well as the smell that came through the air. Jack climbed back out of the small office space, staring down at the burnt and charred bodies that lay scattered around the floor.   
  
“All roads in Rapture lead to Ryan,” Atlas explained. “The security, the splicers, the Big Daddies, the Little Sisters: he pumps some kind of chemical scent in the air, pheromones they call it, makes them all dance to his tune.”   
  
Shaking his head, Jack made his way back to the ice tunnel. With a simple snap of his fingers he was able to melt the ice away, a trolly was thrown at him by a splicer in a doctors coat and a pipe, but he set it on fire. Watching a moment as it flailed its arms around and screamed, before he finally shot it.   
  
He explored, collecting more bullets and dealing with more splicers, finding even more recordings as he went. He learnt about a two new people that lived in Rapture, a Brigid Tenenbaum and a Doctor Yi Suchong. They were both so cold, viewing people as nothing but subjects, test subjects for them to experiment on. It was so far that this… Suchong saw himself as some sort of artist. An artist of science.   
  
Eventually he came across a shotgun. Thinking nothing of it, he picked it up and made a huge mistake. The lights around the centre of the room, where he’d found the shotgun, went out. Jack’s grip tightened on the gun and he felt a cold sweat break out across his forehead. Footsteps sounded in the darkness, it sounded like someone was running, then all manner of hell broke loose. Splicers from every angle came charging out of the darkness and Jack was forced to shoot every single one of them. He was glad he’d picked the shotgun up, thanks to the spread pattern he could take more than one splicer out at a time.   
  
Once they were all dead, he heard more foot steps and the lights came back on, blinding him a moment. He huffed and rubbed at his eyes, trying desperately to keep his cool as best he could. Jack couldn’t afford to panic, Atlas needed him and so did his family. He couldn’t afford to break down and loose control, he had to do something. He had to help this man and his family.

* * *

  
Frank grinned as he watched the kid run around the medical pavilion. The genetic freak of nature he’d commissioned from that damn slant was a work of genius. He should really send the insane doctor a raise, if he was still alive of course. Fontaine couldn’t really say he was saddened by the Korean’s passing. Suchong had never been a pleasant sort of person. He even creeped Fontaine out occasionally.   
  
So, now he had the genetic freak back in Rapture and maybe Ryan had stalled his plans a little, so what? The old bastard was only stalling the inevitable. By the end of the night, Ryan would be dead and Fontaine would be in control of everything. He’d be running the stage like he should’ve done from the very beginning. Like he would’ve done, if Ryan had played by his own rules.   
  
A scowl fell across his face and he poured himself some whisky, lighting up another cigarette in the process. He needed something to keep him calm, to keep himself in character and distracted from the rage that was always so close to bubbling to the surface. If he could keep his cool, everything would go according to plan. Unfortunately he was missing one more vital component for that.   
  
Taking a drag from his cigarette, Fontaine began to flick through security cameras, looking for that familiar red head he knew all too well. Em was the missing piece of course, she was the only one who knew how to get past Ryan’s gate. Unless one of those scrubs in Hephestus had finally had enough and tried doing something about it. He wouldn’t put it past that Aussie, the one Em had been friends with. Bastard was probably dead by now. Frank had never liked him. He was amusing to annoy, however and by god was he obvious. Head over heels for the Norwegian broad and for some reason that kindled another rage inside Frank.   
  
Anyone would be able to tell you it was jealousy, but Fontaine shrugged that off. He wasn’t jealous. Why would he be? Em hadn’t chosen the Aussie, she’d chosen Atlas. She chose _him_. He had no reason to be jealous of that whining little nothing that chased after Em like a lost puppy. It was pathetic.   
  
He paused in his search and frowned a moment. Why did that bother him? It shouldn’t. She was just useful and yeah, a nice role in the hay, Fontaine wasn’t going to lie to himself about that. Not to mention those cold nights in the department store had been made bearable with her by his side. She kept a cool head and she was a damn good shot. It seemed like Em had never lost her usefulness, if anything she got more useful as time went on.   
  
Now he was searching for her. His missing piece and maybe when all was said and done, he’d keep her in his employ. Fontaine wasn’t stupid, he knew there was only one way for that to happen. He needed to find the boy. He needed to find Clayton.   
  
Thinking of the what would now be twelve year old boy, Fontaine felt himself soften once more.   
  
He hadn’t seen Clayton in two years. That kid had been as much of a ghost as his mother had been, though he’d been a lot more agreeable one since he didn’t blow up all his supplies, unlike Em. Hell hath no fury than a woman scorned, yeah Fontaine now understood why that saying existed. Especially after Em’s rampage through Rapture destroying everything he’d built, even their secret tunnels they’d made. Gradually taking down his network. Jesus had it pissed him off.   
  
Now he needed Clayton, however, since he was the key to finding his mother or at the very least getting her to do something she wouldn’t necessarily do. Bottom line, Clayton was Em’s weakness. He liability and Fontaine knew exactly how to use the liabilities of someone else to his own advantage. He finds the kid, he threatens him and then the mother would dance to whatever tune he wanted. Sometimes you didn’t always need mental conditioning to get someone to do what you needed them, sometimes the good old fashioned ways still had their uses. Also meant he’d be able to keep an eye on the kid, keep him safe.   
  
Once Ryan was good and dead, he’d get rid of the genetic freak too. Then he’d use Clayton to keep Em under his control, make her keep Hephestus working and maybe if he was feeling generous he’d allow her to see her sweet little boy, before taking him away from her again.  
  
He smiled to himself as the kid on the screen, his genetic weapon, found the Telekinesis Plasmid and injected it into himself. Now he could deal with Steinman and make his way through to Port Neptune.   
  
Fontaine looked over his many screens once more, scanning them for a flash of movement, but he still couldn’t see his kid anywhere. Well, he couldn’t see one of his kids at least.   
  
He froze a moment, staring ahead of himself and not at anything at the same time.  
  
No. He couldn’t think like that. Jack wasn’t his, Jack was simply a means to an end. He was a weapon, he wasn’t even human! If he wasn’t human then he wasn’t a kid, though, Fontaine supposed, Jack was still his. His weapon. His genetically altered killing machine. So… maybe he was his.   
  
Fontaine looked up at the screens again and watched as Jack used the plasmid to clear a path through to Steinman’s and then also killed the splicer tossing the bombs in the first place for good measure.   
  
The kid was making his way through to Steinman. Frank ran his hand of his face, curtesy of the good doctor himself, probably some of the best work Steinman had ever done. Still, the man was a loose end… Fontaine liked tying those up and bringing them to a close. Only way to move forward in this life. Cut all ties and tie up loose ends. He couldn’t afford to have anything holding him back.   
  
Watching the screens, he saw Jack make his way to surgery. The last time Frank had seen Steinman the lunatic had been… well, he’d been quite close to insanity and splice town that was for sure. Judging by the state of the medical pavilion he’d gotten worse, he wouldn’t just how many of those ugly mugs were Steinman’s doing and had nothing to do with splicing.   
  
Fontaine wasn’t surprised by what Jack found, but the kid looked horrified. Truth be told, Frank himself was a little horrified, but he’d seen and done all manner of things down in Rapture that violent acts like Steinman’s work just didn’t effect him anymore. The psychopath would be dead soon anyway, so what did it matter? Jack would be doing the whole of Rapture and Fontaine a favour.   
  
Steinman had a woman on the table, if you could even call her a woman still, he was stabbing into her violently and it looked like he was complaining about something. He watched the screens as the madman frantically gestured around the room at three other bodies that he’d pinned onto makeshift operating tables and then hung up in the air. It gave Frank flashbacks of Cicil and he shuddered a little, not wanting to remember that particular encounter with that maniac at all.   
  
The current maniac he was watching finally took notice of Jack, brandishing of all things a machine gun from seemingly out of nowhere. Looked like the lunatic had rested the machine gun by is work area, like every good doctor should.   
  
“Wonder if he sanitised it,” Fontaine mumbled to himself before laughing at his own joke. “Well this is gonna be interestin’… let’s see what good money can buy.”

* * *

  
_Doctor J.S.Steinman,_   
  
_Aphrodite Walking:_   
  
_Aphrodite is walking the halls, shimmering, like a scalpel… “Steinman,” she calls, “Steinman! I have what you’re looking for! Just open your eyes!” And when I see her, she cuts me into a thousand beautiful pieces._


	4. I'm Walking Behind You

_Kelly Christie,_   
  
_You promised:_   
  
_You promised me pretty, Steinman, you promised me pretty! Now look at me, look at me!_

* * *

  
_“What can I do with this one, Aphrodite? She won’t. Stay. Still! I want to make them beautiful, but they always turn out wrong! This one; too fat! That one; too tall! This one; too symmetrical! And now- what’s this, goddess? An intruder? He’s ugly, ugly, UGLY!”_   
  
“Look at you, hideous!”   
  
Jack ducked behind the doors, loading his machine gun as he went charging into the surgery area. His hands were shaking and he fired a spray of bullets at Steinman or… whatever was left of him. He was now just a spliced up mess of insanity and macabre fantasies. He didn’t even think he could apply the title, ‘doctor’ to him anymore, ‘butcher’ felt more like a title suited to this mad man.   
  
As he chased the doctor around the surgery, desperately trying to kill him, the many words of his audio diaries flittered through his mind. He’d found nearly all of Steinman’s recordings and he’d listened to them all, he’d listened to this man slowly loose his mind until he was hallucinating. Jack wondered if this… what Steinman had become had always been lurking underneath, but only the ADAM was able to bring it to the surface.   
  
_“Ryan and ADAM, ADAM and Ryan… all those years of study, and was I ever truly a surgeon before I met them?”_  
  
 _“There was a time, I was happy enough to take off a wart or two, or turn a real circus freak into something you can show in the daylight. But that was then, when we took what we got, but with ADAM… the flesh becomes clay.”_  
  
 _“I am beautiful, yes. Look at me, what could I do to make my features finer?”_  
  
 _“What excuse do we have not to sculpt, and sculpt, and sculpt, until the job is done?”_  
  
 _“With ADAM and my scalpel, I have been transformed.”_  
  
 _“When Picasso became bored of painting people, he started representing them as cubes and other abstract forms.”_  
  
 _“What if now it is not my skill that fails me… but my imagination?”_  
  
 _“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could do with a knife what that old spaniard did with a brush?”_  
  
 _“Today I had lunch with the goddess.”_  
  
 _“Aphrodite is walking the walls… shimmering like a scalpel…”_  
  
 _“Symmetry, dear Steinman. It’s time we did something about symmetry.”_  
  
 _“And when I see her, she cuts me into a thousand beautiful pieces.”_   
  
Jack shook his head fiercely and checked his hand, flexing his fingers so the incinerate plasmid flowed through his veins. It made his skin turn black and burnt, looking more like stone than skin. Through the cracks red and orange fire flowered through, like veins of molten larva.  
  
A few more bullets from Steinman hit the pillar he was hiding behind and Jack ducked as the wall exploded a little from each shot. He quickly darted out from behind the wall, firing his own machine gun at Steinman, hitting the man a few times, but he didn’t go down. Steinman only stumbled a bit, coughing some blood up, before straightening out and standing back to his full height.   
  
He was running out of bullets in the machine gun and would need to reload soon, but he needed to stall Steinman for a moment. Bracing his fingers, he snapped them and set Steinman on fire. The man screamed and waved his arms around in the arm, before running in a blind panic to part of the surgery wing that was flooded.   
  
Jack knew he had seconds, quickly reloading the gun, looking up just in time to watch Steinman emerge out of the water. His clothes were horribly burnt as was himself, but the man grinned at Jack and the other realised why soon enough. Horrifyingly, Jack watched as Steinman’s skin repaired itself. Knitting back together.   
  
“Don’t you see?” Steinman said, pulling out a scalpel from his leather surgery uniform. “I only want to make them beautiful, don’t you see that? I only want to make them… beautiful…” he grinned, taking a few steps towards Jack, his machine gun held in his other hand. “I can make you beautiful.. like the others… wouldn’t you like that?”  
  
Jack aimed his gun and fired several shots, striking Steinman in the chest and he stumbled backwards, the bullets tearing him to pieces. Slowly the scalpel was dropped and so was the tommy gun. The mad doctor stared at Jack, coughing up blood from underneath his surgical mask. He was starting to heal a little, but Jack took the shotgun off his back and fired one blast straight into the man’s chest, sending him flying backwards into the flooded area. There was a splash and Steinman slowly began to float away from him, his blood turning the water crimson.  
  
The young man above him took a deep breath, before collapsing to the floor, leaning against the wall and putting his head in his hands. That had been worse than any of the other splicers. Steinman had been hard to kill, brutal in his own brand of violence. Jack glanced up at the copses that were still strung up on display. How could someone do such a thing to someone?   
  
“You all right?” Atlas asked over the radio and Jack nodded. He knew the man was watching him, he just couldn’t speak right now. “It was time somebody took care of that sick bastard,” Atlas soothed. “Make sure you get the key off Steinman and head back to Emergency Access. I’m working my way to the back side of Port Neptune meself. We’ll get there soon enough.”   
  
He nodded again, pushing himself to his feet and wadding over to Steinman. He pulled the key from him and collected his machine gun ammo, before slipping the machine gun onto his back, shotgun clasped firmly in his hand.   
  
He wandered over to the corpses and began to look over them, just in case they had anything on them, you needed all the help you could get after all. He didn’t find anything on the three strung up, but the one on the table had one of those recording devices, audio diaries if he remembered right. He’d seen an advertisement for them, sold by.. a Fontaine.   
  
Jack pulled the audio diary from the body and pressed play. He might be able to find out who this was, but unfortunately, all that came through was Steinman’s voice.  
  
 _“Four- oh silk and…. done.”_  
  
 _“The nose looks terrific, Doctor Steinman… Doctor?”_  
  
 _“You know, looking at her now… I didn’t realise how much her face sags… scalpel…”_  
  
 _“Excuse me?”_  
  
 _“Scalpel!”_  
  
 _“Uh, doctor, she’s not booked for a face lift…”_  
  
 _“Let’s just come in here and…”_   
  
The sick bastard started to whistle a tune and then Jack heard the panic voice of the nurse who was with him.   
  
_“Doctor… stop cutting… Doctor, stop cutting… Get me the chief of surgery! Get me the chief of surgery now!”_  
  
Jack dropped the diary on the floor, feeling sick and revolted. Angrily he brought his foot up and stamped on the diary, bringing his foot down several times into he turned the diary into tiny little pieces. He wished he could’ve done that to Steinman, cut him into tiny little pieces for everything he’d done. How sick and twisted did you have to be to even… to even consider doing this?!   
  
Taking a few steps away from the diary and casting one last look at Steinman, he left the surgery wing. He had to fight a few more splicers on his way out, but they weren’t anywhere near as strong as Steinman had been. They crumpled with a few shots from his shotgun.  
  
It was easier not to look at those.. things as people anymore. He couldn’t put any emotion behind it, just close himself off and remaining silent seemed like the best course of action. If he didn’t talk he could close himself off, he wouldn’t have to focus on the deaths. It would just.. become systematic. A routine almost in shooting and killing people.  
  
As he made his way towards the exit there was a loud bang and crash, he stumbled a little to the side, using the glass wall to steady himself. When he looked up he saw a pipe had fallen down and was blocking his path, water was also slowly filling up the area.   
  
“Sounds like another tunnel collapse,” Atlas said. “Welcome to Rapture, the worlds fastest growing pile of junk.”  
  
Jack pushed off the wall and went to move when he felt a stinging headache run through his head. He clutched at his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut and for a brief moment he could see his home flashing before his eyes. The little farm house in Kansas which was so far away from here. A place where he was safe. Where he didn’t have to kill or hurt anyone… if that was the case… why could he hear someone screaming in the background. It sounded like it was him…   
  
He snapped his eyes open, shaking his head to clear it a moment and continued on with his journey. He couldn’t go the same way he’d came, but thankfully there was another door attached to this long glass corridor and he went through it. Stumbling to a stop when one of those Big Daddy things was thrown through the glass window of another room, on fire and landed directly in front of him. He heard the little girl scream as her protector was killed off and Jack quickly raced through, ignoring Atlas a moment.   
  
“It’s a Little One… Here’s your chance to get some ADAM.”   
  
A splicer was already approaching the little girl, mumbling about how he was going to enjoy the ADAM inside her, then a gunshot went off, striking the splicer in the arm. It span around to look up at its attacker before being shot in the head.   
  
Jack stared up to see a woman glaring heatedly at the splicer, before turning the gun on him. She wasn’t spliced, he could tell from here she wasn’t spliced up like everyone else and she’d saved the little girl.   
  
“Stay away from her or it is you who will be shot next.”   
  
“Easy Doctor he’s just looking for a wee bit of ADAM, just enough to get by,” Atlas reasoned.   
  
“I’ll not have him harm my Little Ones!”   
  
“It’s okay, lad. That’s not a child, not anymore it ain’t. Doctor Tenenbaum saw to that.”  
  
“Bitte, do not hurt her!” Tenenbaum cried, placing a hand over her chest. “Have you no heart?”  
  
“Aye,” Atlas said sarcastically. “That’s a pretty sermon from the ghoul who cooked up those creatures in the first place. Took fine little girls and turned them into that, didn’t you? Listen to me, boyo,” he went on, almost whispering to him. “You won’t survive without the ADAM those… things… are carrying. Are you prepared to trade your life and the life of my wife and child for Tenenbaum’s little frankensteins?”   
  
Jack found his feet moving towards the little girl that backed away from him. She was whimpering and crying, backing away from him as he walked towards her. He felt like he had no control over his actions, that Atlas’s words were all he needed to walk towards the child and do exactly what the man was saying.   
  
“Here!” Tenenbaum yelled and he turned to face her once again. She was holding what looked like a Plasmid bottle in her hand. “There is another way,” she tossed it to him and he caught it, surprising himself in the mean time. “Use this. Free them from their torment… I will make it to be worth your while… somehow…”   
  
He slowly stepped towards the girl, injecting the new plasmid Tenenbaum had given him into his arm. The little girl backed away from him until she couldn’t go anywhere. Her dead glowing eyes held so much emotion in them. More emotion than any of the other creatures he’d seen in this place. Pure fear poured out of her eyes and she held her arms up as a means to protect herself. She was innocent, a child who’d been turned into this against her will, just like he’d been thrown into this place against his. She was as much of a victim as he was.   
  
The little girl tried to bat his hand away from herself as he gripped her tightly, but not so tightly that’d she’d be hurt. He only held her tightly so she wouldn’t run away. He desperately ignored her screams and cries of protest, before holding up his hand and it glowed brightly. A white blinding light, like the light at the end of the tunnel. Almost like it was hope itself and he placed it to the girl’s forehead.   
  
Jack felt the ADAM rush into his veins from this little girl, it felt like a high and he felt powerful for those brief few seconds. Like he could do anything and everything. Was this how the splicers felt? Did they feel as untouchable and powerful like he did in these brief few seconds. Power like that… it was addictive.   
  
He shook his head violently, banishing that thought from his head and then he looked down at the child before him. A normal little girl greeted him, wavy brown hair, rosy cheeks and bright blue eyes. If he felt like her glowing ones had held emotion, now they were a beacon of emotion. Almost pouring out of those blue eyes.   
  
She clasped her hands together and bowed a little, thanking him, before running away from him. Jack watched her scrabble for a vent and climb into it without any hesitation. He recalled the pair of glowing eyes he’d seen in the vent before hand. Was that another little girl like this one? They must use the vents to get around, it certainly made sense. How else would they avoid the splicers if they didn’t have their faithful guardians with them.   
  
Jack’s radio crackled to life once again, half expecting it to be Atlas’s voice coming through to scold him, but instead he was meant by the German accent of Tenenbaum.   
  
“The path of the righteous is not always easy, yes? The reward will become clear in time. Be patient.”   
  
The line went dead, but he shook his head. He wouldn’t consider this to be the path of the righteous, it was just the right thing to do. How could anyone hurt a little girl like that? He didn’t care how powerful the ADAM made him feel, it wasn’t worth a child’s life, that was just barbaric. He was surprised Atlas would even suggest it. If he had a child himself, how could he so easily throw another’s life away like that?   
  
His radio crackled again and this time it was Atlas. Jack was right, he didn’t sound happy, it almost felt like he was scolding him.  
  
“Tenenbaum’s playing you for a sap,” he stated matter of fact, not a hint of remorse in his voice and it made Jack frown slightly. “Those things may look like wee little girls, but looks don’t make it so. You’ll need all the ADAM you can get to survive.”   
  
Jack snatched the radio from his hip and brought to his face. “I don’t care. It’s not worth a child’s life. You’re a father, Atlas, how can you just dismiss something like this? How can you be so cold?!”   
  
He waited for a response, looking at the world around him, this dead.. dying, city at the bottom of the ocean that was somehow clinging desperately on to life. It was rotten to the core and yet it refused to die. Jack wondered if the city was as stubborn as the people that live in it, since everyone he’d so far met had been very set in their ways.   
  
Maybe that was why Atlas was so cold. He’d been stuck down here longer than Jack had, he’d probably done everything to survive, but Atlas had said that he’d not touched a drop of ADAM. Not once.   
  
Atlas sighed down the radio, it sounded like a defeated sigh. Almost like the man was admitting that Jack was right, but he wasn’t ready to say it with the words just yet. It would be enough, at least Jack had been able to get through to him.   
  
“If you cross paths with another of them Gatherer’s Garden machines, make sure you pick up a new Plasmid or tow. That’s if the price ain’t too dear, of course.”

* * *

  
Fontaine angrily stamped his foot against a splicer’s face. He couldn’t believe his damn ace in the hole, is genetic weapon, was such a goddamn bleeding heart. Didn’t that kid get it? Those brats aren’t children, they aren’t even human, how can you feel sympathy for something that’s not human? They were no better than the splicers, no more a real person than the Big Daddies or hell, Jack himself. Jack was just like those ADAM factories. He wasn’t a real person, no matter what he might think.   
  
The only reason he thought he was a real person was because Frank had allowed him to feel like that. He’d allowed him to fantasise such a possibility and then had Suchong make it real in the kid’s head, but deep down… deep down that little bastard must know he’s not human.   
  
He waited for the sound of Jack finishing up with the Gather’s Garden machine before he spoke again. Staring down at the dead body of the splicer he’d shot. It had already been dead when he’d stamped his foot against its face. He just needed to do something to get his anger out.  
  
He wasn’t sure if he was angry at Jack or Tenenbaum. If that bitch hadn’t been there then everything would’ve gone smoothly, but now, Jack had a reason to distrust Atlas. How could Atlas just throw away a young girl’s life like that? Well, maybe he should be asking that question to Tenenbaum also. She made those things… her and Suchong both had and Frank didn’t have anything to do with it. It was all them, he would wash his hands of that mess.   
  
Besides, he might be a little rusty. In the end, he didn’t even need to convince people to tear those factories apart. He had to stop them on more than one occasion and then he lost control of them completely.  
  
“You’re ready now,” he stated, watching the blood of the splicer slowly make its way across the floor. “It’s time to take on one of them Big Daddies. It won’t be easy, but it’s the only way to get to the Little Sisters… and the ADAM they carry.”   
  
He tore his eyes away from the mess he’d left behind, continuing on his way towards Neptune’s Bounty. It wasn’t far now, he was almost there. Just needed the kid to pull the lever to the sub on the other side and… then he’d be home free. Convince the kid that Ryan must of kidnapped his family from the sub and that they needed to save them from Ryan. Then all he’d have to do was kill the kid.   
  
As he continued his venture, he could hear the sound of a Big Daddy fight over the radio. The Little Sister’s scream and the occasional yell and cry of pain from Jack. It lasted a good few minutes, but by the sounds of things Jack was able to kill the big brute and once again saved the Little Sister.   
  
Frank sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Of course. Of course he was a little goody two shoes hero type. The hell did he pick that up? Even as a kid, Jack had been nice. Little brat had cried for days about his puppy and it had been up to Fontaine to comfort the kid. He even gave him time off training and conditioning. Precious time, he might add. He didn’t need to either, that was just him being nice. Kid should be grateful.   
  
Speaking of kids… where was Clayton? Frank hadn’t seen him. Had the kid died…?   
  
Fontaine felt a sudden feeling of dread and sorrow in the pit of his stomach, followed by a wave of dizziness. He managed to stop and clutch the wall of the corridor he was currently walking down.   
  
The kid couldn’t be dead.. Clayton was too tough for that, he was a survivor like himself. He wouldn’t be dead and then Frank would use him against his mother. Problem solved. He just had to find him.   
  
“Are you almost back to Emergency Access?” He asked, pushing away from the wall and beginning his walk back. “Come through as soon as you get there. You got Ryan’s eye now. You won’t hear him coming,” he said, glaring at the floor as he found himself speaking from experience. “But he’ll be there before you know it.”   
  
Jack didn’t say anything, so Frank assumed he was on his way back like he’d suggested. Now all that was left was for Fontaine to come up with… well, these characters he’d made. The wife and child.. how in the hell was he…?   
  
He paused and a smile slowly began to crawl up his face. Oh… he had the perfect person to base his oh so lovely wife offf. Who else could it be? She may not be Irish, but that Norwegian board was the perfect candidate for him. He could base this lie around her, using her characteristics and move on from there. The best liars told the truth after all.   
  
There was a sound over the radio and he noticed all the flashing lights and alarms had shut off. The kid had done it, well at least he was good for something. Maybe he hadn’t been a complete waste of money.   
  
“I don’t know how you managed it, but you did,” he praised, imagining the smile on Jack’s face. The kid had always liked praise, needy little bastard that he was. “Come through to Port Neptune now. I’m looking forward to shaking your hand.”

* * *

  
Clayton switched the frequency on his short wave radio, frowning a little. He’d often switch the frequencies when he was stuck in the safe house, he liked to find out what was going on and it was an easy way for him to keep a track of where everyone was. Sometimes he heard people he remembered or at least recognised.   
  
It still felt jarring to hear Atlas and know exactly who he truly was. Fontaine really was a good actor, but it seemed this man that had come down from the surface was smart. Or at least he did question some of Atlas’s- no, Fontaine’s requests and commands. Clayton was glad that he’d questioned the Little Sister, he’d made the right choice and he’d saved her. He doubted that Fontaine would be happy about that.   
  
He knew he should probably step in. Probably help this man, but… well, he didn’t want to put a target on his back. If he interfered with Fontaine’s plans, he knew that the man would make it his mission to track him down. That still didn’t explain what Clayton had seen that day in the Silver Finn.   
  
He wasn’t sure what that had been, but he knew it wasn’t a hallucination. Fontaine had touched him, he’d been there and he’d been real. Older than he was now and he looked like he had some colour to his skin, almost like a tan, something that Clayton knew you needed the sun for. Everyone in Rapture was always so pale, even Clayton’s freckles had faded over time, but they were still visible. His Mother had explained that once he saw the sun they’d go darker again.   
  
Clayton glanced over at the little girls, they were only a few years younger than him, but he felt like an older brother. He was the one that had to look after them when his mother and Tenenbaum wasn’t around, but they were coming back now. It hopefully wouldn’t take them too long, he wanted to go out and see how Gabriel was doing.   
  
He placed the radio down and walked over to his things, sorting them out and fixing up a small backpack that he’d take with him. It was filled with flash bangs and bullets. Clayton had to abandon his use of crossbow bolts as Fontaine had stolen his crossbow from him, though the boy supposed that the man hadn’t intended for him to see anymore violence. He’d planned to keep Clayton locked up and maybe try to regain his trust.   
  
Like that was going to happen. He knew what Fontaine was now. He was liar and a murderer. He was a monster, no better than Ryan in Clayton’s opinion. Yet the boy still found himself missing him. Clayton still wanted Fontaine to… win, to a degree. He blamed it on the feelings of love he felt for the man. He still saw him as his father, even though he knew it was a futile effort. Fontaine or whoever he really was, would never be who Clayton wanted him to be. He should really accept that.   
  
Sighing to himself he sealed up his backpack and swung it on his shoulder, attaching his radio to his hip and grabbing his pistol. He wouldn’t be gone long, hopefully he’d be back before his mother Tenenbaum got back. The little girls would be okay, they knew they weren’t allowed to leave and that they had to keep the door locked at all times.   
  
Clayton walked to one of the vents and climbed inside, thankful for his small size and his ability to still fit in the vents. It certainly made getting around Rapture easier than it used to be. He was grateful for that, it meant he didn’t have to kill so many splicers on his journeys.   
  
Rubbing at his eyes, he continued his crawl through the vents. Hopefully, he’d be able to find Gabriel pretty easy and then they could gather up some supplies. If Fontaine won and it seemed that the man was pretty confident that he would, then they’d need to be ready. Once Ryan was out the picture, Fontaine would be after them, Clayton didn’t doubt that for a second. They were the only loose end left after all and Frank Fontaine couldn’t leave any loose ends.

* * *

  
_Doctor J.S.Steinman,_   
  
_Gatherer’s Vulnerability:_   
  
_Not only are those little girls veritable ADAM factories, they’re nearly indestructible. They regenerate any wounded flesh with stem versions of the dead cells. But their relationship with the implanted slugs is symbiotic… if you harvest the slug, the host will die. “So you see, it’s not like killing,” Tenenbaum said. “It’s more like removing a terminal patient from life support.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP Steinman.... you were a psycho I both enjoyed and hated writing you... you shall not be missed XD whoop!


	5. We Saw the Sea

_Sullivan,_   
  
_Smuggling Ring:_   
  
_I’m closing in on the whole ring. I’d pat myself on the back, but let’s face it… these aren’t exactly bloodthirsty desperadoes we’re talking about. Rapture’s full of poets, artists… tennis players, not hired guerrillas. But this leader of theirs, this Fontaine… he seems to know his way around a grift. He keeps his nose clean, but not so clean that the right people don’t know he’s not to be trifled with…_

* * *

  
The sight that greeted Jack when the sphere first rose up out of the water was not one he was expecting. It held a rotting corpse, strung up with the word ‘smuggler’ written above him, presumably in his own blood.   
  
Jack covered his mouth and winced when the door opened as the rancid smell of rotting meat hit him square in the face. A few rats were busily eating at the corpse, chewing up the meat and flies buzzed around it aimlessly. Below the body were various items and boxes, things like bibles and crosses were just a few things that he recognised.   
  
This little show… this welcome party, it felt like an omen. A hint to Jack that things were only going to get worse. If he thought the medical pavilion was bad, well, this entrance showed him it was only the beginning. Things were only going to get worse from here and how much worse depended on him.   
  
“Now you’ve had the pleasure of Andrew Ryan’s company,” Atlas said, sounding more sarcastic than Jack had ever heard from the man. Though granted he hadn’t known the man long. There was a bitterness in Atlas’s words. A deep seated anger that radiated off the Irish man in waves. “He’s the one who built this place, and he’s the one who run it into the ground,” he explained as Jack stepped out of the bathysphere he’d used to travel from medical to… this place. He glanced up at the hanging man, strung up like a mockery of christ himself. “Nobody knows exactly what happened. Maybe he went mad. Maybe the power got to him. Maybe he just decided he didn’t like people,” Atlas went on, sounding like he was telling a scary story rather than giving Jack information. “Whichever way you slice it, good men died.”   
  
Jack shuddered at the last note. It sounded… it sounded like a man filled with regret. Was Atlas also partially responsible for what had happened here? It was hard to tell, the story for what had happened here wasn’t very clear and yet Jack felt like he already knew it. It was like a song you hand’t heard in years. You knew the tune, but you couldn’t remember the words. Not until they were being spoken to you and then you were able to put the two together.   
  
This story, the story of Ryan and Rapture.. it was a tune Jack recognised, but the details, the words were just at the back of his mind and no matter what he couldn’t reach them. Yet, the names.. he didn’t know them and he knew them at the same time. It was infuriating as much as it was intriguing.  
  
“Me family’s in a submarine hidden in the foundation of Fontaine Fisheries. I’ll meet you there.”   
  
He nodded his head a little, clutching at his shotgun tightly, feeling the fear starting to get to him. The world around him creaked and groaned with age and decay. It was clear that the city hadn’t been maintained, it had simply been left to rot and yet it refused to die. Like a ghost of a dying man unwilling to pass on.  
  
Speaking of ghosts, Jack had seen a few down here and he was starting to think he was going insane. That this… world was driving him over the deep end. For some reason, wether it be the decaying corpses or the insane splicers that were left, Jack felt like this place would change him. Something… was going to happen, he didn’t know why but he could sense that there was something just not quite right.   
  
After climbing over a Big Daddy corpse and a fallen sign, Jack ventured into a partially flooded corridor. It was dark and sea water leaked through the windows that were cracking under the pressure. In this dark corridor the glass allowed some light to slip through and bodies outside floated around, casting shadows across the floor that rippled when Jack stepped through the water.   
  
Ahead of him he saw some light and another shadow kneeling down, looking over something by the looks of things. It abruptly turned to the direction that Jack was, no doubt whoever the shadow belonged to could hear him walking through the water and was alerted to his presence.   
  
“Who crawls into my garden…” a woman’s voice whispered, but it sounded.. strange. Hagged and worn out. No doubt it belonged to a female splicer, Jack couldn’t even think of these things as people anymore. It was easier not to.   
  
As he got a little closer, he watched the shadow suddenly leap up into the air, arms extended and it showed hooks at the end. Immediately his mind flashed to the thing he’d seen kill that Jonny person, Atlas’s friend, when he first got here. Jack quickly double checked that he had in fact loaded the shotgun, that everything was ready should he have to start firing off bullets.   
  
He quickly turned the corner, only to find a dead splicer on the floor. It was a male one, dressed in workman’s waders and its throat was slit. Well, slit was too polite of a word, it was more like his throat had been ripped out and torn to pieces. Blood pooled around its head and the splicer stared up at the ceiling that had a hole in it, with a small amount of warm yellow light engulfing the little crawl space. Jack wished the light was down here, not up there. This area of Rapture seemed deeper than the medical pavilion, it was also cold down here. He shivered and pulled the sleeves of his sweater down, pausing a second to stare at the chain tattoos on his wrists.   
  
The young man reached forward and gently ran his fingers over the chains, staring at his right wrist and then his left one. Both had chains tattooed and the chains matched each other, five links across both wrists. He’d had them for as long as he could remember, but he wasn’t sure of the significance behind them. He couldn’t remember the reason he’d got them, just that whenever anyone saw them they always gave him odd looks.   
  
Shaking his head, he pulled the sweater sleeves down, walking through to the main area of Neptune’s Bounty. A few rose petals littered the floor, but no rose to be found. He wasn’t sure what that quite meant, but Jack heard a noise above him, almost like something metal was crawling across the ceiling. When he’d looked up there had been nothing there, just an empty ceiling.   
  
Jack looked around the main area of Neptune’s Bounty. It was dark down here. The lights had all gone out and it casted this area in a blue hue. The smell of fish and rotting corpses filled the air and the wooden floor of the port was sleepy and wet. From blood or water, Jack wasn’t quite sure and in here he could smell the distinct scent of salt water.   
  
A Big Daddy appeared with a little girl, Jack readied his bullets and Plasmids, attacking the brute. He was glad that he was able to get the drop on this thing, but it surprised him by having a gun instead of simply charging him like the last Big Daddy had. He dodge the shots, hiding behind some crates, ducking when one exploded and the young man found a rivet imbedded in the wall. Gulping at the sight, he wiped the sweat from his forehead and came out from behind his cover, firing at the beast once more.   
  
It took a while, he even had to dodge some landmines that the Big Daddy threw at him, but eventually he was able to put the thing down and rescue the little girl. She thanked him like the last one had, before running away to hide. The chaos and noice that had occurred during the fight inevitably attracted splicers and Jack had to deal with those too. Running low on supplies didn’t help, so once he’d taken care of them he looted their corpses, snatching whatever he could find.   
  
Jack began searching the main area of the wharf, looking up and down for supplies, stuffing them in his bag while also reloading his weapons. He even came across another diary, this one was recorded by a Sullivan. Again, not a name Jack had heard before, but he was intrigued so he pressed play.   
  
_“We’re putting all the bathyspheres in lockdown until further notice. Ryan had us install some kind of genetic device into the things so only Ryan and his inner circle will be able to use ‘em without dispensation. But the boys tell me the keys are pretty unreliable. Sisters, cousins- anybody in the ballpark, genetically, will be able to come and go as they see fit.”_   
  
He slowly lowered the diary and stared ahead of himself, gazing out at the big blue as he began to think. According to this Sullivan.. Jack shouldn’t be able to use the bathyspheres and yet… he could. That made no sense, how would he be able to use them? He didn’t know anyone down here, he didn’t even know this place existed, so how was he able to use them?   
  
Well, it was an old system, maybe that was how? This Sullivan had said that the keys were faulty, maybe they’d finally broken and anyone could use the spheres? That was the most logical answer, at least it was the only one that made any sort of sense.   
  
He shouldn’t dawdle. Atlas’s family were still stuck down here. He needed to keep moving.   
  
Jack got back to his feet and continued with his journey, after passing through a door he finally found the place he was looking for. He couldn’t help but smile at the glowing neon sign that read ‘Fontaine Fisheries’, the place he’d been looking for, the smile, however, was short lived. There was a turret resting on top of some boxes and Jack only had seconds to dodge it as this fired rockets, the blast threw him against the wall and dazed him a moment. Head spinning and ears ringing, Jack struggled to his feet, trying to desperately collect himself so he could dodge another blow from another rocket.   
  
After getting to cover, he used his telekinesis plasmid against the turret, blowing it up with its own ammunition. Then it was just a pile of scraps and parts, sparking out occasionally.  
  
As Jack climbed across the boxes, he found another audio diary sitting neatly by the floor. He jumped down and picked it up, crouching down to keep himself covered. He found his legs were grateful for the rest, his hands shook as he reached up to press play, finding this one belonged to that Emilie Lokken from before.   
  
_“Well you wouldn’t believe who I got a job from today,”_ the woman laughed in disbelief before continuing, _“Frank Fontaine of all people. I’ve been watching the gossip about him, probably the only person to give Ryan some competition in this place. I had to fix one of his fishing subs, apparently one of his boys didn’t know how to pilot it and crashed the damn thing. While they were trying to park it. Jesus,”_ she sounded exasperated. Jack could almost imagine the woman rolling her eyes. _“Only thing I hate about this job is working close quarters with Peach Wilkins… hate that idiot, such a pathetic little rat of a man, always going on and on about how much he hates me. Ain’t never been able to get over that one pool game, has old Peachy. Swear that man holds grudges for a life time, but he works for Fontaine so I have to dance around him,”_ Emilie sighed into the recorder, before lowering her voice, almost like she was whispering to it. _“He’s hiding something, Fontaine is, the interior of the sub was smaller than the schematics say it should be. Secret compartment I’d wager and I’ve been hearing a lot of whispers about.. smuggled in goods… Hm. I don’t care, it doesn’t concern me and besides, this is Rapture, things work a little differently.”_   
  
The recording ended and Jack placed it back down on the floor. So.. whoever this Fontaine guy was, he seemed to have once been a powerful figure. If that was the case, where was he? Ryan was still alive and so had that Steinman… the crazy doctor seemed have control and influence before he went insane, so that must mean this… Fontaine guy was still alive, right? Maybe he was the one that Jack was meeting behind these doors, had he helped Atlas in some way? If this Fontaine stood against Ryan, just like Atlas seemed to, then maybe he was helping Atlas?  
  
Jack walked up to the doors and opened it, immediately flinching back at the dead body on the floor, rose petals falling around it.   
  
“Days go by like wind…” a female voice muttered above him.   
  
He looked up, but was once again unable to see anything. Walking up over to the next door, trying it but finding it locked.   
  
“And one day the gentlemen stopped calling…”   
  
Flinching, he span around staring at the empty room. His eyes were wide and darting from left to right. Jack was already starting to feel like he was becoming hyper vigilant, but down here he supposed that wasn’t a bad thing. There was anything down here and it seemed like all of it wanted to kill him, except Atlas and Tenenbaum.  
  
Jack still didn’t know what to make of her. Was she only helping him because he’d saved one of her girls? Well, three of them now… but Atlas had said that Tenenbaum had made them. He wasn’t quite sure what that had meant… the girls did carry a high amount of ADAM in them, was that her doing? Did Tenenbaum do that to them, because that was the only way Jack could see her ‘making’ them as Atlas had said. Why would she do that to those little girls? They were innocent… what had they done wrong? Better question would be, why didn’t anyone stop her?  
  
When Atlas had spoken about them, he’d simply referred to them like it was just the way of life. Killing and harvesting a child was simply the way life worked down here, the man hadn’t even blinked. He didn’t seem fazed despite the fact he was a father himself, for some reason that didn’t sit right with Jack. He idly wandered if Atlas treated his own family with such contempt, but no, when he spoke about them it was clear that Atlas cared and loved his family. He was desperate to get them out of here, maybe the man himself had seen too much. Wasn’t like Jack knew what Atlas had been forced to do just to survive down here. It was probably safer not to ask.   
  
Raising the wrench, he slammed it a few times against the metal door and jumped back a bit when a peephole revealed itself in the door. A man stared through at him, a welders mask was covering his face and Jack was instantly on edge. The splicers in the masquerade masks flashed through his mind, his hand finding his pistol and curling around the handle, finger resting on the trigger.   
  
“Atlas radioed on ahead. Says you were looking for an invite to the fisheries. Nuts, I say. But if’n you heads up to the wharf master’s office and find ol’ Peach a research camera, maybe I could manage an invite…”   
  
Jack frowned and went to speak, because that was not and had not been part of the deal, when a clatter sounded behind him, startling the both of them.   
  
“What was that?!” Jack assumed, Peach, had said.   
  
The rose petals began to gently drift down towards him, they were beautiful and delicate, not fitting in this harsh and dead world around him. They were far too filed with life down here, they should be back topside, gazing up at the sun.   
  
“My friend, you are fucked.”   
  
Jack glanced at Peach, glared at him almost, while the man backed away from the door.   
  
“My rose!” An inhuman scream came from above. “I want it back, I want it back!”

* * *

  
Frank was leaning against a railing while he waited for Jack to be done with Peach. He’d held the radio close to his ear so he could hear what Peach was saying to the kid. He almost yelled down the radio when Peach requested a research camera of all things. Did that insane, paranoid, lunatic not know the world he was living in? Did he not see that everything was falling apart at the seems? Though apparently the tricky sod knew where one was. Fontaine ideally wondered if it would still work.   
  
When the inhuman shriek of a splicer had sounded down the radio, Fontaine had jungled the device in his hands. He’d jumped out of surprise because of the volume, almost dropping the little shortwave radio. He was able to catch it, however, then got to listen to Jack try and deal with a splicer. It sounded like a tough one too, his money was one either it being a Houdini splicer or a spider splicer. Those two were probably the toughest splicers around, he mostly avoided them as best he could.  
  
Eventually it seemed old Peachy had taken pity on his little ace in the hole, sending down a flying turret to deal with the splicer and then the bastard was back to talking to Jack again. He even mentioned Fontaine’s own name, threatening the kid that he’d kill him if he thought for one moment that he was really working for him.   
  
Well, technically…   
  
Frank shook his head in irritation. Of course Peach would bring him up, the old coot was completely paranoid, didn’t believe that people were actually dead. True, Fontaine wasn’t actually dead, but as far as he was aware, Peach didn’t know that for certain. So, he was in the clear and Peach had worked for him while he’d been playing Atlas too. The friendly, charming and charismatic revolutionary, who only wanted what was best for everyone else, nothing more. Now he was desperately trying to save his poor family.   
  
He mentally patted himself on the back for the brief inspiration when he’d spotted that poster with ‘Patrick and Moira’ written on it. Two appropriately Irish sounding names and he had two people he could base these imaginary individuals off. Em was perfect, the kind of woman that was believable in the sense that she’d be the type of woman Atlas was attracted to. Feisty and sharp tonged, then sweet little baby Patrick was just a substitute for Clayton. Speaking of, Frank still needed to find that kid.   
  
“Grown man jumping at ghosts,” he sighed, using his well practiced Atlas lit as he spoke into the radio. “Fontaine’s dead and everybody knows it. In the ground for months and half the place still jumping at his shadow, christ, even Ryan!” That did put a smile on his face, not that it sounded in his voice when he spoke. “You never mind all that.. we got work to do.”  
  
He sighed and pinched at the bridge of his nose, listening to the kid wander around, get into more fights, attack splicers and even make a treck through a patch of water. He heard it all over the little radio in his hands. He really wished he had his screens, but those were back at his main base, now he was having to play it by ear.  
  
“Seems like ol’ Peach knows where to find a research camera. He seems a decent enough sort,” he rolled his eyes a little. “No doubt he’ll wait until after you’ve done his errands to stick a shiv in your belly.”   
  
“Charming.”   
  
Fontaine snorted at the kid’s blunt reply. Impressed that he had a little bit of a sense of humour it would seem. So maybe they had made a bit of a person in him, so what? He wasn’t really a person, he was a means to an end and once that end was achieved, he just needed to be dealt with. Kid wouldn’t even know what him him. Probably wouldn’t last long enough to register the betrayal he had cooking up for him.   
  
He went to reply to the boy, but then someone else’s signal cut through his own transmission and he heard the Kraut’s voice speak to his weapon.   
  
“You have shown kindness to my little ones, but are you really a friend to us? Regardless, a little one brings you a gift to demonstrate our appreciation.”   
  
His eyes couldn’t roll far enough back into his head. Oh yeah, sure, she could go and play the whole redeeming card all she liked. She was no better than him. Hell, from his point of view, she was worse. Playing a saint when she had a bigger rap sheet than Fontaine did, probably a bigger one than what he could achieve in a life time.   
  
Those little girls hadn’t been his idea, they’d been all her’s and Suchong’s. Conducted those experiments behind his back and handed him the finished product. The one that was left anyway. He wondered just how many they’d gone through to find out which way would work best and where to put the slug, but some things were better off not knowing. Frank had enough issues with those little ADAM factories anyway, he didn’t need to add anymore to the list. Becoming emotionally involved wasn’t a good idea. Bad for business.   
  
He listened to the kid run around, heard the many gunfights and even listened to him save another one of Tenenbaum’s little brats. Bet she’d be oh so happy. Another one of her little science experiments was set free, well wasn’t that just sweet? Fontaine sorely wanted to yell down the radio and yell at the kid. Tell him to stop being soft or better yet, tell him all the things that Tenenbaum had done. Go more in detail, but he couldn’t. Atlas wouldn’t know the intricacies, he’d just know what everyone else did.   
  
Still irritated him that the kid had listened to Tenenbaum over him. Frank was his owner and a good dog always listened to it’s owner, not some random stranger that fed it praise. If it did, then the dog wasn’t very well trained, but oh no, not his Jacky. His kid was the best and most well trained lap dog you’d ever meet. The best of it was, the kid didn’t even realise and didn’t that just bring a smile to his face.  
  
“The research camera looks just like one you’d see topside,” he explained to the kid, deciding to help him out just a little. “According to this magazine article I scrounged up,” he went on, lying as he went. “It can also ‘analyse genetic information, parse biological structures’,” Frank said, making it sound like he was having a hard time reading it, just like a member of the working class that hadn’t gotten a very good education. “And lots of other five-dollar words.”   
  
He knew what it was, of course he did. Clayton had one, made his own and explained how it worked to him in detail. The kid had been very proud of himself and Fontaine recalled that all he’d done was ruffle the kid’s hair. Granted that was the early days of their relationship so he wasn’t too comfortable with the whole ‘father figure’ role he’d unwittingly taken up.   
  
He listened to the kid deal with the security and find the camera. A splicer was somewhere nearby singing an old hymn. That took Frank back to his time in the orphanage. Down to church every Sunday in his best outfit, clean and neat, not a hair out of place unless you wanted to meet the ruler again. Then it was singing and reading from the bible. Christ he’d even been a choir boy at one point, not by choice of course, you wouldn’t catch him dead in that stupid robe.   
  
Frank shuddered at the memory before talking to the kid again through the short wave radio.   
  
“You have the research camera? Good. Guess it’s time to get to work for ol’ Peachy. Take the man’s pictures and let’s get the hell out of this place.”  
  
Hopefully, the kid would be able to get this done quickly. He didn’t have time for all this shutterbug nonsense. This was like Cohen, which was a man he really didn’t want to think about right now.

* * *

  
Jack took a photo of another splicer, dodging its strikes and fish hooks that it threw at him. He dodged them, jumping up with her own gun and shooting him down. Running through to what looked like a bar or.. pub? It was called the Fighting McDonagh, looked like it had been locked down by Ryan, but now he was able to get through. Thanks to part of the wall being destroyed.   
  
“Me wife, Moira, she’s a right pain in the neck. But she’s a beauty,” Atlas breathed. “And she means the world to me. I can’t help but feel god’s punishing me for bringing her and Patrick to this place. I thought this would be a better life for us. Can you imagine a bigger fool than that?”   
  
He felt sorry for him, he really did. Atlas had tried so hard for his family, that was obvious and he clearly loved them. His wife sounded like she was a bit of a handful, independent and strong willed. It was the perfect woman for a man like Atlas, he could just tell.  
  
As he entered the pub, Atlas once again spoke up after Jack dealt with the splicers.   
  
“I took me wife on our first date to this place. You must think I’m a fool, taking a fine lady to a dump like this, but you don’t know me, Moira,” he laughed softly. “Give her a string of pearls and a silk gown, and she’ll dance a waltz. Give her a sea shanty and a bottle of rum, and she’ll drink a pirate under the table.”   
  
Yep, he was right. She was a wild card for sure. Sounded like a wonderful woman, he was a little excited and nervous to meet her. He wondered how old little baby Patrick was, if he was just a baby, then hopefully he wouldn’t have any way of remembering this place. Even if he did, he’d hopefully be young enough that all of this would just be a distant memory, before finally turning into a fuzzy dream that he could hardly remember.   
  
As Jack continued, he took a photo of the last splicer, getting ready to leave when a few doors caught his eyes. One of them had been coded and Jack hacked it, entering the room. He froze at what he saw. A woman and a man, both dead, their bodies had dried out they’d been here that long. The woman was clutching at the man, someone Jack assumed was her husband, tightly. In a final lovers embrace. Pills were scattered all around them and a single audio diary rested by their bodies.   
  
He was hesitant to pick it up, but he thought it was only fitting to listen to their story, so he hesitantly pressed play and listened to the heartbroken cries of a mother.  
  
 _“We saw our Masha today. We barely recognise her. ‘That’s her,’ Sam said. ‘You’re crazy,’ I told him. ‘That thing? That, that is our Masha?’ But he was right. She was drawing blood out of a corpse by Fontaine Fisheries, and then when she was done, she walked off hand in hand with one of those awful golems. Masha!”_   
  
The tape cut out and Jack let it slip out of his fingers, clattering to the floor. He ran a hand down his face and closed his eyes, taking a moment to collect himself. Who could do such a thing to a family? Who could tear a family apart like this? Briefly his mind flashed to Ryan and there was his answer.  
  
He recalled on his journey here how he’d found other audio diaries. One of which had belonged to Ryan, well, two of them actually and both showed what kind of man he was. Cold, calculated. Unable to handle the idea of loosing to anyone.   
  
_“Something must be done about Fontaine. While I was buying buildings and fish futures, he was cornering the market on genotypes and nucleotide sequences. Rapture is transforming before my eyes. The Great Chain is pulling away from me. Perhaps it’s time to give it a tug.”_  
  
When he’d listened to that tape the ending had felt ominous. Like a promise, a promise that something was going to happen to Fontaine and it wasn’t going to be a good thing. Then there was Atlas’s remark about Fontaine being dead, the same with Peach, but from what he could gather, a lot of people saw Fontaine as a crook. A man that was cruel and unforgiving, he sounded a lot like Andrew Ryan.   
  
The second tape had practically confirmed that idea of Fontaine being a criminal. At least according to Ryan and once again, it only made Jack think that Ryan must of had something to do with Fontaine’s demise.  
  
 _“This Fontaine fellow is somebody to watch. Once, he was just a menace, to be convicted and hung. But he always manages to be where the evidence isn’t. He’s the most dangers type of hoodlum… the kind with vision.”_   
  
Jack glanced at the two dead bodies and shook his head. What a waste. What a senseless waste, when he looked at this place he could see what Rapture had once been. You could see the beauty underneath the grime and the dirt. Something that could’ve once been so great was reduced to this and wasn’t that one of the worst tragedies of them all?   
  
All the posters with smiling faces, they all showed or hinted that this city was going somewhere. That it was going to be the greatest thing ever and even some of the recordings hinted at that, but then the hope fell out of people’s voices. The happiest was replaced with nothing but heartache and cynicism. A sarcastic and heavy view of the world, not one that he’d want to partake in himself. He still held hope, he didn’t want to see the world as a mess, even if this place was forcing him to look at the very worst of humanity. To face it head-on and even sink down to their level, well, he’d saved the little girls so he’d managed to keep some of his humanity. He hadn’t lost it all yet.   
  
“Sounds like that should about do it,” Atlas said over the radio. “Head on back to Fontaine Fisheries when you’re ready, would you kindly?”   
  
Jack felt a shudder go through him and his legs made him stand up at their own accord. Almost like they had invisible strings attached to them, like a puppet, but it was just his imagination. He chalked it up to Atlas telling him to get moving and the fact that Jack very much wanted to leave this place. Leave it behind and let Rapture become nothing more than a distant memory.  
  
As Jack made his way back to the Fisheries, he once again came across another spider splicer, this one he shot down and was it just him, or was it easier? When he’d first had to deal with those things, they hadn’t been easy to kill at all, there were moments when he felt like they were bullet proof, but this one went down no problem. Like he knew exactly where to shoot to cause the most damage.   
  
His radio crackled at his hip and Peach’s voice came through the speaker.   
  
“They sure go down easy once you research them up right. Come on in and show us those snappy nappies.”   
  
Oh. So the research… the research meant that he knew how to take these spider splicers down. Presumably, that would work for all of the splicers? It would be short lived, but it might make his journey back to Fontaine Fisheries easier.  
  
So on his way back, Jack alternated between taking photos and killing splicers. He could even take photos of their dead bodies and it helped, but it was better if he got them alive. He continued until he ran out of film and then he found himself at Fontaine Fisheries again, pushing the door open and there was Peach, ready to great him.   
  
“The wharf rat didn’t get himself et,” he laughed, sounding surprised and maybe just a little impressed. “You got something for me and my crew, or are you just looking to get criticised? You set here a spell,” he held his finger up and Jack imagined he was grinning behind that welders mask of his. “I needs to put on some coffee. Maybe puts on silverware and the like.”   
  
Okay… that was a little… strange….   
  
Jack heard the locks click open and he reached for the handle, but once again his radio crackled to life and this time it was Atlas speaking to him.   
  
“Before you head into the fisheries, a word to the wise. Ol’ Peachy seems about as straight as a dog’s hind leg. You keep your eyes open.”   
  
The line went dead again, but Jack reached for his pistol and clutched it tightly. He needed to be ready for anything, as it seemed that Peach might not be holding up his end of the bargain. Jack pushed the door open and entered the fisheries, shivering from the cold and he almost slipped over due to the high amount of ice. It looked like whoever ran this hadn’t stopped the cooling system, so the ice had simply spread across the whole floor instead of being in the freezers.   
  
Well, it was now or never. It was almost over. He let go of the door, entering the fisheries completely and the steel door slammed shut behind him. The loud bang echoed around the room he was in, which also featured a dead body and bullets left on the ground.   
  
Jack closed his eyes and sucked in the cold air, trying to calm down his racing heart. He didn’t like this, but everything was going to be fine. It was almost over. All he had to do was get to Atlas’s family and then he’d be free, able to escape and Rapture would be nothing but a distant memory.

* * *

  
_Andrew Ryan,_   
  
_Death Penalty in Rapture:_   
  
_The death penalty in Rapture! Council’s in an uproar. Riots in the streets they say! But this is the time for leadership. Action must be taken against the smugglers. Any contact with the surface exposes Rapture to the very Parasites we fled from. A few stretched necks are a small price to pay for our ideals._


	6. I'll Never Smile Again

_Sullivan,_   
  
_Have my Badge:_   
  
_Hanging now, is it? That’s what we’ve come to? Now look, I don’t make the laws here, I just enforce them. But I didn’t come to Rapture to string men up for running contraband. If Ryan and his crew have their law, then they can have my badge._

* * *

  
“Nobody walks into my swampy carrying the heat. Put your weapons in the pneumo, and then I’ll let you in.”  
  
Jack paused and stared down at said pneumo, a glare on his face. He didn’t like this, there was just something not sitting well with him. Something was wrong, he could tell. It would seem Atlas wasn’t too keen on the idea either, as the man sighed down the radio, before finally speaking.  
  
“If that’s his price, you’re gonna have to pay it.. but he can’t very well take you Plasmids away, now can he?”   
  
Ah yes, the plasmids. The Tonics. The genetic altering chemicals that turned ordinary people into monsters and then some. Or maybe they were already monsters and the ADAM gave them an excuse. People often only did bad things when they had an excuse. Either something bad had happened in their lives or they could put the blame on someone else. It was so very rare for someone to ever blame themselves.   
  
He took off his weapons and sent them through, keeping the wrench and his bag of supplies on hand. Hopefully everything would be fine, smooth sailing after this point on. Then again, probably not, Jack was starting to get the feeling that there was nothing smooth about Rapture. It was all sharp edges and dangerous corners. You didn’t know what would be behind those corners, but it was usually something that wanted to take your head off.   
  
The door to the back of the fisheries opened up and Jack wandered through. The place was covered in ice. It grew across the walls and it even blocked off some of the other doors that would no doubt lead to more storage. There was the smell of fish in the air. It wasn’t like the smell that had followed him around the rest of Neptune’s Bounty, that dead, rotting smell, this almost smelt fresh. He supposed it was the ice keeping it cool, the room was absolutely freezing. He could see his breath as he continued to travel deeper into the freezers.   
  
Jack felt a chill go down his spine and then it seemed to get foggier inside the industrial freezer. The fog increased to the point that he couldn’t see at all, could barely make out of his own hand when he held it in front of his face.  
  
His radio crackled to life and Peach’s voice came through, sounding a lot less friendly than it did before and Jack immediately raised his wrench up. His hand sparked to life with incinerate as he stood waiting for something to jump out at him.   
  
“Now, I bet when your boss waggled out of Hell, he done told the Devil he’d be right back, and the Devil says ‘sure thing, Mister Fontaine. I’ll hold you a spot’,” Peach snarled voice came through the radio as he yelled at Jack, accusing him of something that wasn’t true. “Ryan promised Fontaine was dust, and now here you are, doing his dirty. I guess that makes Ryan a bum and you a-”   
  
The line went dead and Jack stood ready, his breath coming out quicker than it did before. Short sharp breaths as he felt his own heart speed up. Blue eyes darted around, looking for any sign of movement or a flicker of something, just anything.   
  
“Atlas, he was ours! Ours!”   
  
Jack dodged a swing at him and then jumped away from another explosion, falling on his back. He scrambled to his feet, looking up at the person who’d attacked him, finding Peach standing in front of him. The man had a box which was filled with nitroglycerin bombs.   
  
The madman snatched another bomb out of the box, before tossing it at Jack, who was able to role out of the way.   
  
As he scrambled to his feet he heard the cries of other splicers, the sound of their running feet.   
  
Automatically Jack widened his stance, his wrench was held in his hand reasonably loose so that he damage himself when he based in the skulls of the splicers, his other hand ready with incinerate crawling up his arm. It was almost second nature to go in this stance, like he’d been born to do it, almost like something in his brain had finally clicked into place.   
  
Every swing of the wrench, every strike of his fingers with a sudden burst of incinerate. Watching splicers left and right burn up, before he cracked their skull open with a simple swing of his wrench. He would redirect the bombs Peach through at him with telekinesis, tossing them either back at Peach or at the splicers around him.   
  
It was utter carnage around him, but it almost felt like home. The violence didn’t bother him and everything seemed to become a blur, nothing was clear and everything was clear at the same time. He found himself predicting all of their moves, could read the splicers movements and counter it with his own, usually ending with a wrench smashed against the side of their skull. The blood splattered across his face and up his arm, he ideally wiped it away with the back of his hand, before continuing with his bloody massacre.   
  
By the time he was finished with them all, every single one was dead and Jack hadn’t even broken a sweat. He didn’t even feel tired, he just felt relieved that it was all open.   
  
Rubbing his eyes, he quickly ran out of there, locating the pneumo, he snatched up all of his weapons that he’d sent through previously. He filled up on EVE once again, brushing his hair out of his face, before continuing down the stairs to the lower area of the fisheries. It was the only other place he could go, Atlas had said that his family were hidden in this place somewhere. Though he wasn’t sure quite where.  
  
“The submarine bay was only used by smugglers and thieves,” Atlas spoke suddenly and whilst Jack would’ve jumped, he was starting to get used to Atlas’s random and sudden radio messages. “More than likely the entrance will be hidden, better to keep the coppers off the scent.”   
  
Yes that would make sense, still… there was another audio diary, just sat by a strange looking machine with the word ‘power to the people’ written over it. This device seemed to have been made by Fontaine Futuristics, so… another company that Fontaine owned. He sounded like a powerful man, no wonder Ryan had been so worried about him.  
  
Jack pressed play, happy to be taking a break in the killing, even if it meant he was just listening to another sad person on the other end of a recording. A message from beyond the grave, that’s how Jack treated these diaries. Little clues to the past that hinted towards the story of Rapture.   
  
_“Fontaine never ceases to amaze me,”_ a voice he was becoming familiar with spoke up. It was the voice of Emilie, a woman that sounded either jaded or sarcastic and cynical most of the time. This would be one of those times once again. _“He creates this damn splicer problem in the first place so people want guns, but not all regular guns work on some of these special types. So what does Fontaine do? Has me install these damn power to the people stations, so now he’s making twice as much money and the people love him even more. You should hear the selling tag line, ‘a gun in every home, peace in every street’, ha! Sometimes I feel like that man has an answer for everything. It’d be impressive if he wasn’t so smug about it, the bastard.”_   
  
Huh. A machine that would make his gun more powerful? That sounded useful, but Jack also stored away the information about Fontaine being responsible for the splicers.   
  
Choosing his shotgun, Jack chose to increase the damage, watching as the machine worked and added some extra pipes and tubes to the gun. He’d wager it would have something to do with pressure, but he wasn’t a mechanic so he couldn’t be sure. He took his gun away once it was finished, wondering what else he could upgrade, but the station suddenly read ‘closed’ across the bottom.   
  
Frowning at it, he realised that he could only use it once, but… maybe once was enough. The shotgun was powerful anyway, now it would be twice as powerful as before, the amount of damage he could do, the splicers wouldn’t know what hit them. It was perfect. He soon realised how perfect it was when he was attacked by two splicers and finished both off with one shot of his shotgun.   
  
He searched the storage room, unable to find anything except another diary which had been recorded by Peach. He listened to it, listened to how scared and paranoid this man was of Fontaine and Ryan. Jack felt like he couldn’t very well trust anything that Peach said.   
  
Jack explored another area, finding two ghosts waiting for him that entered through a hole in the wall. It was hidden by a large block of ice that Jack melted away after watching the ghosts.   
  
_“You can’t quit, Fontaine will find you.”_  
  
 _“Hey, fuck Fontaine.”_  
  
 _“You don’t fuck Fontaine, Fontaine fucks you.”_   
  
The ghosts vanished, faded away into nothing once more and Jack crouched down to the right height for the hole in the wall, finding a passage way that had been carved into the rock.   
  
“You got it!” Atlas cried down the radio, sounding pleased and impressed. “Should be smooth sailing from here. I’ll meet you up ahead.”   
  
He suddenly felt nervous. Meeting Atlas? The man was larger than life in Jack’s eyes. Over the time that he’d been directing him around the city and talking to him through the radio, listening to the man talk about Rapture’s history, his family and the war… Jack felt truly humble coming before this man.   
  
Atlas had done what his namesake had done, he’d taken the world on his shoulders, carrying it on his back by himself and rallying the people. How strong would you have to be to do that? How selfless and strong willed did you have to be to keep the hope alive, even when you knew there truly was none. Even now, with the city falling apart around him, Atlas seemed to still have hope and that alone had empowered Jack. Simply having someone believe in him.   
  
Jack darted through the low hanging corridor, ducking under the rocks and then splashing into a flooded area of this dug out cavern. It looked like this whole place was dug out of the very foundations of Rapture itself. He supposed they were lucky they hadn’t caused a cave in and messed everything up above them.  
  
“I’m right outside the submarine bay, but I can’t get in. I’ll need you for that. My family can’t be more than a hundred yards away.”   
  
With a new sense of urgency, Jack powered on, he took a shot in the side from a turret for his trouble. Destroying it quickly with his newly acquired grenade launcher thanks to Peach, before patching himself up with one of his med kits. He rushed through, ignoring anything that he could pick up, fully in the belief that he’d be leaving Rapture for good.   
  
He climbed up some more rocks, ducking under a few low hanging pipes that looked like they’d once been support beams that had fallen down. He still didn’t feel tired, despite the fact that he’d been running none stop through this city. Jack had never found himself so much as a moment to breath. Even the moments that were quiet were marred by the idea that something could just be lurking around the corner.  
  
“Hit the switch up there in the control booth and let me in,” Atlas said, as Jack climbed up another fallen piece of debris, climbing towards a small room. “I think it’s time to shake hands and get acquainted.”   
  
He grinned at the very idea, still feeling that rush of nerves run through his body. Meeting someone like Atlas… god, what was that going to be like? Jack felt like the man was the only friend he had down here and Atlas had guided him through all manner of hardships, no doubt still worrying about his family. Yet he’d taken Jack under his wing, so to speak, the moment he arrived and helped him through Rapture.   
  
Walking up to the switch, Jack’s fingers just barely touched it, when his radio crackled to life again. Atlas didn’t speak, but someone far worse. The man behind all this pain and tragedy.   
  
“You’ve had your fun, but enough is enough,” Ryan snarled down the radio. “If you press that button, you’ll learn what it means to truly be my enemy.” Jack found himself freezing a moment. Eyes wide in panic as whispered words in audio diaries suddenly bombarded him. Little warnings and hints at the man’s true, murderous intentions. His indifference towards people, how little he cared about what happened to them. How little their lives meant to him.  
  
 _“Ryan’s hanging people round Port Neptune as a warning… he’s just leaving them strung up in a mockery of Christ for smuggling bibles. Bibles!”_  
  
 _“Parasites will be punished.”_  
  
 _“The Great Chain is pulling away from me. Perhaps it’s time to give it a tug.”_  
  
 _“Once he was just a menace to be convicted and hung.”_  
  
 _“But I didn’t come to Rapture to string men up for running contraband.”_  
  
 _“A few stretched necks are a small price to pay for our ideals.”_  
  
 _“Ryan’s men had taken you away and said you are needed to save Rapture. Who needs a child to save a city?”_   
  
Jack grit his teeth and shook his head. He’d be out of here soon, far away from Rapture, from Andrew Ryan. He’d never be able to reach him outside of the city limits. His proclamations were false.   
  
With his mind made up, he pulled the lever, an alarm began to blare, with some doors on the floor below him opening up. He could see the submarine from this vantage point too, except there was another explosions somewhere and dust settled around him inside the booth.   
  
He coughed and covered his mouth, looking down to see Atlas run into the area, dressed in a set of waders with a cap on his head. The man stopped and looked up towards the booth, Jack waved to him, but it looked like Atlas couldn’t see him and his suspicions were confirmed over the radio.   
  
“You blow a fuse up there? Can’t see a damned thing in that booth. Give me a tick and I’ll get you out of there,” Atlas turned away from him, directing his attention towards the submarine. “Moira! Can you hear me in there darling?”   
  
Atlas walked over to some controls, a gun held high in hand and Jack watched him from his vantage point, unable to leave the booth. One horrible moment, he was scared Atlas was just going to leave without him, but he scowled at himself a such a stupid idea. Atlas wouldn’t leave him. He wouldn’t abandon him, he knew he wouldn’t.  
  
“So dark in here,” Ryan mocked over the radio. “If only your friend could look up and see you. Maybe you could warn him,” Jack’s eyes widened and then he spotted some movement in the rooftop as a spider splicer crawled across the ceiling, another pipe fell down in front of him, with several spider splicers crawling over the glass, just like the very things they were named after, one of them even tried to break the glass, before continuing to crawl down. Jack could then here Ryan continue. “If only you could do something… anything… except just stand here and watch him die.”   
  
On cue Jack heard Atlas shout and fire off two shots off. He couldn’t see anything because of the pipe blocking his view. Not to mention the dust.   
  
“Splicers!” Came Atlas’s shocked and panicked voice through the radio. “They’re everywhere! I can’t hold ‘em, got to fall back. Get me family out and we’ll regroup as soon as we can!”   
  
Jack bolted to the second door, which now finally opened, allowing him to make a run for it down to the submarine bay, but splicers jumped down from the ceiling, or they ran up the gangplank to stop him. He had to shoot them down and hit them with his wrench a few times. He desperately fought through the hordes of them that just seemed to pour out of the walls.   
  
“Get out if you can! Get out and we’ll regroup!”   
  
He turned a corner, he could see the sub, there were more splicers around it and he wasn’t sure how he was going to get Atlas’s family out, but he was going to try. Moria and baby Patrick were stuck inside, they could probably hear everything happening. They were probably terrified, Patrick would be crying and Moria-   
  
An explosion cut through Jack’s thoughts and he was thrown backwards, landing harshly against the floor. The splicers that had been in front of him were now all charred and dead. Their bodies on fire and burning up from the explosion. Jack coughedannd spluttered, trying desperately to suck down air that had been forced out of his lungs from the blast.   
  
“The sub! Noooo!”   
  
Atlas’s heartbroken cries felt like a punch to the gut.   
  
Jack slowly collected himself, sitting up and staring at the burnt remains of the sub. Staggering to his feet he hopelessly began to search for any sign of life, no matter how futile it was. There had to be something, there had to be a chance, they were so close. This wasn’t fair. This wasn’t fair! They were innocent!   
  
“You ooze in like an assassin and then you try to sneak out like a thief,” Ryan declared angrily down the radio. “You’re no CIA spook. _Who are you? Why have you come here?_ ” The murderer on the line seemed to collect himself. Jack could almost picture him smoothing down his suit and hair before speaking again, sounding a lot more collected. “There’s two ways to deal with a mystery: uncover it or eliminate it.”   
  
The young man was hardly listening to him. He didn’t even fully register the threats, he could only stair at the burnt out and hollow shell of the submarine. This was all his fault. He should’ve been quicker, he should’ve tried harder to rescue them, they were innocent. How could Ryan do such a thing?   
  
“Get out!” Atlas’s choked up voice came through the radio, Jack could tell the man was holding back tears. “Get out and get to Arcadia! Jesus Christ…”   
  
Those were the sounds of a broken man. A man who’d lost everything and Jack’s heart went out to him. He felt like it was his fault. Briefly he picked up the radio as he made his way towards the only exit, but he paused, the radio halfway up to his lips. He didn’t know what to say. What could he say? “I’m sorry”, just didn’t seem to cut it, so instead he didn’t say anything at all.

* * *

  
Frank wiped at the sweat on his forehead, collecting himself as he snuck through one of the secret passages that his followers had built to get to Arcadia. That had been a close call, but ironically, Ryan had worked in his favour. Stupid old bastard, he kept falling in Frank’s traps over and over again. It was hilarious.   
  
Still, all those splicers had been a little too close for comfort. He’d been cut across the arm by a hook, grazed by a bullet, he was lucky he hadn’t died. That would’ve been a blow on his plan.   
  
His shot of luck seemed to be continuously on his side, however, because he finally found Clayton.  
  
Frank would forever find it funny how their paths would always cross. The boy was a constant in his life, even when they’d avoided each other, they’d always end up finding each other again. Like family always did and that’s what this kid was. He might not like it, but Fontaine didn’t know a single family that got on well. There was always at least one person in it that everyone hated.   
  
In this case, such a role fell onto himself, but that was irrelevant. He’d found the kid. Finally found him and better yet, Clayton hadn’t noticed him and neither had his spider splicer body guard he still kept around. Frank wondered how Gabriel was still in control of his facilities, he should be looking for Jack not looking for supplies with Clayton.   
  
Well, whatever, that was irrelevant to him. He pulled out his pistol, ducked behind a corner, aimed and shot Gabriel in the leg.   
  
The splicer went down, howling and Clayton span around, his own gun raised, but in the time it had taken him to turn, Frank had already crossed the distance and shoved him to the floor.   
  
The boy lay on his back, the gun had scattered away from him and he stared up at Frank with a mixture of shock and horror. It stung a little, but Fontaine was already too far along. In too deep to stop now, he had to carry this on.   
  
Glancing at Gabriel, he saw the splicer was clutching its leg and wore a gas mask. Huh. Smart. Must be Clayton’s idea to stop the pheromones working on him. The kid had always been so very good at figuring stuff out. Even found out about Fontaine, though, he did get some help with that.   
  
Looking back at Clayton, he aimed his gun at him, before wordlessly stamping on Gabriel’s head and knocking him out.   
  
“No!” Clayton yelped, he made a grab for his gun, but Frank bent down and picked him up. Wrapping his arm around his middle and hoisting him off the floor. Clayton hadn’t grown all that much in the years Frank hadn’t seen him, so it wasn’t that hard.  
  
The kid squirmed and kicked, yelled insults at him and threw punches, but they always missed their mark. Eventually Frank got irritated with the kid’s constant squirming and to be honest he was still a little angry with Clayton. The boy had escaped after all, messed all of his plans up and hadn’t listened to him. After everything he’d done for him. Even giving him free rein of his own penthouse where it was warm and safe, with books and food, not to mention security. It was the safest place for him, it was even away from the war so he wouldn’t have to kill anyone. Hell, Fontaine had even allowed his mother and him to keep up communication and how did the little bastard repay him? By running away. By ruining everything!   
  
Worst yet, Fontaine had even opened up to the kid, a little. As Atlas and as himself, Clayton didn’t know how lucky he was. Fontaine had laid out his very being to the kid, showed him exactly who he was, even came to him after Limey had died. Mostly he needed to smash things, but he’d allowed the kid to see him at his weakest, a luxury Frank had never granted anyone. Not even Limey and Reggie had been allowed to see him so vulnerable.   
  
Bottom line and it was going to sound so stupid, it sounded stupid in Fontaine’s own head, but bottom line; Frank felt safe around Clayton. He felt like he could open up to the kid, lay his soul, if you believed in such a thing, bare for him to see. He opened up, told him everything, well, just about everything and how did the kid repay him? By betraying him! By running away! By leaving him! His own goddamn kid ran away and betrayed him!   
  
“Long time no see, kid,” Frank snarled and Clayton must of heard the anger in his voice, because the boy’s movements stilled immediately. He hesitantly looked up at Frank, staring at him with those big brown eyes of his, the fear was coming off him in waves and it made Frank angry.   
  
Why was Clayton so scared of him? He’d never hurt him. He’d never hit him, never threatened him, he tried to keep him safe damn it! That had been all him, so why was Clayton so scared of him!? So what if he was angry? He had a right to be angry with the boy at this point in time. Little bastard didn’t know how lucky he was, if it had been Frank’s father, the punishment would’ve been far more brutal. Like a whip from a leather belt and line of cussing, before finally being frown away. Dubbed nothing but useless and a pathetic waste of space that would never amount to anything.   
  
Well, jokes on you, old man, Frank was about to win the biggest score of his career!   
  
“Please leave my mum alone,” Clayton whispered, staring up at Frank with watery eyes. “Please… please, you’ve done enough to her! I.. I’ll stay with you, I promise!”  
  
“Oh really?” He rolled his eyes. “I don’t give a damn if you say you’ll stay with me. That ain’t why I grabbed you,” he shoved Clayton against the nearby wall, pinning him there with his hand and glaring at the kid. “You wanna know what you are to be? You’re a bargaining chip! That’s all you are! You honestly thought you were somethin’ important?” He laughed, a hateful and hurtful laugh, while continuing. “You never meant a damn thing to me, kid. Yous was just a bit of entertainment and tool I could use to keep ya’ ma in check.”  
  
Clayton shook his head. “You’re lying,” he stated matter of factly. “That’s not what you truly think. I know it’s not.”  
  
“Oh yeah? What makes you so sure?”  
  
“Because I know you,” he let himself smile crookedly at Fontaine. “We’re alike, remember? You’d never have broken down in front of me if I truly meant nothing to you. You wouldn’t allow me to see that moment of weakness,” Clayton narrowed his eyes at him. “You’re a good liar, Frank, but you’re loosing your touch.”   
  
“Really?” Frank smirked, before grabbing the back of Clayton’s neck and forcing him to move forward, snatching the boy’s own radio away from his hip. “Bet ya’ use this to keep in touch with your ma, right? She still let you out? Nah, knowin’ you, yous snuck out. Always were a tricky little bastard, what I liked ‘bout ya’ Clay’.”  
  
He’d have to get in contact with Jack soon, to reinstate that ‘loving father and husband just lost his whole family’ act, but he needed to get Em’s attention more importantly. She was the next piece in this puzzle, the one that would help make everything possible.   
  
“Hey, Em,” he called into the radio. “Long time no see. I was beginnin’ to think some mook had gotten a lucky shot in.”   
  
He waited, but he didn’t have to wait long. Em’s voice came through to reply to him soon enough. Her accent sounded thicker than he’d ever heard it before. Probably because she hadn’t needed to dampen to talk to anyone.   
  
“No,” she snarled. “I was thinking the same thing about you. How in the hell are you not dead?”   
  
“Same reason you ain’t,” he replied, a smirk curling up his lips. “You ain’t changed a bit,” Frank mused before laughing a little. “Well.. maybe a little bit. A real shame bout ya’ face, you always had been a looker,” he paused before continuing, no doubt Em would be stewing in her anger right about now. “Though I gotta say… ya’ pull it off well, still easy on the eyes,” he grinned to himself. “But given what ya’ competition is.. that ain’t hard is it?”  
  
“What do you want, Frank?” She sounded irritated.   
  
She also had caught on to the fact that he was using Clayton’s radio. Maybe she thought the kid was safe at home or.. whoever they called home now.   
  
“You know… you is what we call in the business a liability,” he admitted. “But, you’re also a grifters ace. You’re the only one who knows how to get past Ryan’s gate. Well, the only one still alive that is. I’m leading a new friend of mine through this madness and he’s gonna kill Ryan, somethin’ I’m sure you’d be pleased about. Problem is, we got that gate of yours in the way. You’re gonna help him get past it.”  
  
“If you think I’l helping you more than I already have-,” she snapped, but abruptly stopped talking before snarling down the radio at him. “Fuck you, Fontaine!”  
  
He sighed a little and squeezed Clayton’s neck making the boy yelp. “See, that’s not what I like to hear. You want to get Clayton out of this sinking pile of trash don’t you?”  
  
“Don’t you dare bring my son into this!”   
  
Frank laughed. “Too late,” he brought the radio to Clayton’s face and squeezed the back of his neck just a little tighter and he cried out again, throwing a glare at him and a few choice words. Fontaine smiled and stopped, bringing the radio back to him, pulling Clayton up by his collar. “I’m gonna assume you heard that.”  
  
“You son of a bitch!”   
  
“Temper, temper, Ms Em,” he scolded lightly. “Clayton’s life hangs in the balance, you’d want to keep that mouth of yours in check.”   
  
“You won’t hurt him!”   
  
“Well, that’s really down to you now, isn’t it?”  
  
“Don’t listen to him, mum!” Clayton yelled. “He’s lying! He won’t hurt me!”   
  
“Shut up!” Frank snarled before turning back to the radio. “I won’t harm a hair on his head if, and only if, you do exactly as I say? Clear?”  
  
“If you hurt him..” Em promised darkly. “There isn’t a single place you’d be able to hide. I’d find you!”   
  
“Oh, dollface, I’m sure you would. In fact, I’d look forward to it,” he grinned. “Now.. we have a deal or not?”   
  
“What do you want me to do?”  
  
Frank grinned at the defeated sigh that had passed her lips before speaking. Oh it was good when everything went his way, it really did put him in a good mood.   
  
“Make ya’ way to Fort Frolic’s bathysphere port. I’m sending my man through there, after a brief stop in Arcadia. Wait for my instructions. Oh, and Em? You better put on a show… I’m a little jumpy now days with my trigger finger,” he glanced at Clayton who only glared back at him. “Clay’s an awful smart kid, I’d hate to waste his brains by splattering ‘em across the wall. Ya’ get me?”  
  
“Yes…” she grit and he could almost imagine the snarl on her face.   
  
“Good!” He replied cheerfully. “Also, you’ll be working for your dear old Atlas again. So ya’ better but on a smile and call me by that name. I can’t afford any mistakes,” he yanked Clayton backwards and he yelled, loud enough for the radio to pick up. “And neither can you.”

* * *

  
_Emilie Lokken,_   
  
_He’s got Clayton:_   
  
_He’s got Clayton! That bastard has my son, using him to get to me, to help him kill Ryan. I made Ryan’s gate… I know how to get past it… If that monster hurts my son… there aren’t enough splicers or plasmids in the world that’ll stop me from killing him._


	7. I’m Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover

_Julie Langford,_   
  
_Arcadia Closed:_   
  
_Today Arcadia was closed off to all but paying customers. The man hires me to build a forest at the bottom of the ocean, and then turns a walk in the woods into a luxury. Ryan asked, “Should a farmer not be able to sell his food?” “Is a potter not entitled to profit from his pots?” I started to argue with the man and then I remembered who signed my checks. Only thing worse than a hypocrite is an unemployed one._

* * *

  
“Moria…. Patrick…” Atlas sobbed down the radio and Jack winced, clutching the radio tightly and staring at it. “Ain’t that just like Ryan. Waits until we’re almost out, and then he pulls the string! We’ll find the bastard!” He snarled, his voice breaking as he reached a higher pitch. “We’ll find him and we’ll TEAR HIS HEART OUT!!”   
  
If the organ was there to begin with. Jack doubted that Andrew Ryan had a heart at all, he had to be heartless to kill a woman and child. Two innocents souls who had nothing to do with the war between Ryan and Atlas. This was madness, how could someone do that? He was in shock, feeling his hands shake and tears were threatening to spill. He felt like it was his fault, even though logically he knew that it was Ryan’s fault.

He clipped the radio to his hip again, breaking the chain lock on the door and pushing it open, revealing a warm area. Jack almost mistook it for the surface because there was glass and warm light. There were gravestones around him, a glass roof and he could see the surface. It was amazing, he was certain that if it was daylight, then maybe the sunlight would reach this area of Rapture.   
  
This area of the city was beautiful. What had Atlas called it? Arcadia? It almost seemed unfair that he should find something so beautiful after an action so horrific. This place seemed like it would’ve been safe for Moira and Patrick. Why was the world so cruel at times?   
  
“I came to this place to build the impossible,” Ryan’s voice came through the radio and Jack was immediately filled with rage. “You came to rob what you could never build. A Hun, gaping at the gates of Rome,” he went on, voice filled with nothing but contempt. “Even the air you breath is sponged from my account. Well, breathe deep… so later you might remember the tase.”   
  
Before Jack could even get over that spoken word or even comprehend what it was that Ryan was saying, Atlas spoke up again.  
  
“You get to the bathysphere in Rolling Hills. That’ll take you straight to the devil himself. And then all debts will be paid in full.”   
  
Jack wasn’t sure who he was more scared of, Atlas or Ryan.   
  
Shrugging off the uneasy feeling, Jack continued, finding this area the nicest he’d seen. He could smell the sweet and earthy scent of roses all around him. There was a haze in the air that seemed to be the pollen itself, with bees buzzing around freely. They didn’t seem that bothered by this new intruder into their little slice of utopia. In this place, Jack could see the beauty that the rest of Rapture had once been, but had since left behind.   
  
The irony of the buildings rotting and decaying, while the greenery flourished and thrived was not lost on him. In this place he couldn’t even smell the stink of death that usually littered the place or filled his nose. Here all Jack could smell was life and it was like the biggest breath of fresh air he’d ever received in his life.   
  
As he continued to walk, he found another diary. This one was owned by a Bill McDonagh and Jack recalled the name from a diaries he’d found through his journey. The man was a Brit and also seemed to be one of the few with good intentions for this place. He also worked close with Ryan, Jack would even go as far as to say the two were friends… he didn’t think being friends with a man like Ryan was a good thing. He picked up the diary and hit play, keeping his head down as the white fuzziness began to appear at the corner of his vision.   
  
_“Seems like some poor blighters have started seeing ghosts. Ghosts!”_ Jack’s eyes widened. That was happening to him. He was seeing ghosts, he was seeing the many dead souls of Rapture through little snap shots of time. Bill continued to explain in his diary. _“Ryan tells me it’s a side effect of this Plasmid business. One poor sod’s memories getting passed on to another through genetic sampling. Leaks. Lunatics. Rebellion. And now bleeding ghosts. Ain’t life in Rapture grand?”_  
  
The tale end of this diary was sarcastic. Seemed like even Bill had begun to realise that this place was falling apart. He was starting to loose hope and become cynical. Like everyone else around here. Still, the ghosts now made more sense. He at least now knew he wasn’t going crazy, he was just spliced up with… well, someone else’s ADAM.   
  
Jack shuddered a little at the thought, placing the diary down, turning back towards the area and watching as one of these passed on memories appeared before him. This one was a woman, who wore a smile on her face and had her arms extended.  
  
 _“What are you waiting for silly? It’s beautiful here!”_

With that she ran off and faded away as she did. Another memory lost to time itself. He followed the vision he’d seen through to the other side, finding two ghosts waiting for him on the other side.   
  
_“Oh honey I’m spliced up in ways you wouldn’t believe!”_  
  
 _“Get over here!”_   
  
The ghosts embraced each other and faded away. One final lovers embrace, Jack’s morbid thoughts supplied him with. These little moments showed him that people had lived here, that they’d once been happy and then the war happened.   
  
He wasn’t sure who was in the right or who was in the wrong anymore. This place had been beautiful and had then been ravaged by war, but the war had been for the right reasons hadn’t it? To help those that Ryan had just given up on and left abandoned to die, so they’d risen up to show they weren’t going to disappear quietly. They’d go down kicking and screaming, they’d fight for what they believed in, even if Ryan was denying them any rights to begin with.  
  
Jack sat down on the bench that he’d seen the two lovers sit, burying his head in his hands and rubbing at his eyes. This was all a mess. A mother and baby were dead, he was trapped in an underwater city filled with monsters, he was dancing to the tune of two men that both played equal part pulling on his strings and this place… it was familiar to him. He hated that last feeling the most.   
  
Whenever Atlas told him to go somewhere, Jack would go and he found that he knew exactly where to go, except… he’d never been here before. He hadn’t had he? No, Ryan wouldn’t let people leave and Jack doubted he’d forget somewhere like Rapture.He’d been on an airplane hours ago… had it really been hours? He wasn’t sure, he didn’t have a watch, but it felt like hours.   
  
He’d only been catching a flight to see family, not end up in some underwater dystopia and have his life threatened. This was wrong, this was all wrong. He wasn’t supposed to be here! He was meant to be in England and why was he the only person to survive that crash? Why hadn’t anyone else survived? Why was he alone?   
  
Jack looked up from his spot on the bench and saw another diary sat away from him. He was almost scared to go and pick it up. He wasn’t sure he was ready to hear anymore whispered words from the past say how great everything was and then abruptly change their tune. It felt like each diary he listened to took a bite out of his hope and made it smaller. He was certain that soon it would be none existent.   
  
No, he couldn’t think like that. He had to keep going, Atlas still needed him. Jack couldn’t give up, he couldn’t let Rapture or Ryan win.   
  
Getting back to his feet, he walked over to the diary, picking it up and hitting play. Tenenbaum’s voice he recognised instantly.   
  
_“The augmentation procedure is a success. The slugs alone could not provide enough ADAM for serious work. But combined with the host… now we have something. The slug is embedded in the lining of the host’s stomach and after the host feeds we induce regurgitation, and then we have twenty, thirty times yield of usable ADAM. The problem now is the shortage of hosts. Fontaine says, ‘Patience, Tenenbaum. Soon the first home for Little Sisters will be open, and that problem will be solved…’”_  
  
Jack felt an uncomfortable shudder go down his spine. It was… odd to hear Tenenbaum talk about the girls like that, especially when she seemed to care so much about them now. How could she do such an awful thing in the first place? It made him feel disgusted and a deep feeling of hatred started to bubble up, but he shook his head, clearing such thoughts. They were not important to him now, she was trying to help the girls, she’d seen the error of her ways and was changing.   
  
In the end, that’s all you could do. Everything else was irrelevant.

* * *

  
Clayton was, in Frank’s opinion, sulking.   
  
The kid was curled up away from him, his head buried in his arms and not looking at him as he sat at the screens, illuminating his safe room. He could spot Jack on his cameras, watching the kid and guiding him through the madness of Rapture. His ace in the hole was taking a moment to have some form of mental break at the moment, he was half tempted to use the radio to get him moving again, but it seemed he didn’t have to. Jack got up and started moving by himself, wandered around until something got his attention.  
  
Fontaine leaned back in his chair and took a drag from his cigarette as he watched a Houdini splicer mess with Jack, playing a perverted game of hide and seek, before adding a little bit of fire into the mix. Thankfully, Jack was a well purchased weapon and he was able to deal with the splicer well. Even took a photo of it, no doubt for more research. That camera, despite it being a little detour in their original scripted plan, wasn’t such a bad thing after all. Turned out to be quite useful.   
  
He looked back at Clayton a second, the boy wasn’t looking at him, still curled up in on himself. Frank was honestly surprised the kid hadn’t tried escaping, but it seemed Clayton had accepted that he wasn’t going anywhere. He was stuck with him for as long as he wanted.   
  
Turning back to the screens, he watched Jack explore, he even found a wall covered in Atlas posters, stood… staring at them. Hell, he almost looked transfixed.  
  
“You might hear things about me, see my name about,” he spoke through the radio to Jack, the fake Irish accent rolling off the tongue easily. “Think what you will. There was a time I cared about politics, but it’s just an excuse men use to kill one another. I’m done with all that. I just want to see the sunlight again.”   
  
Behind him, he heard a bitter laugh.   
  
Frank ignored him. Clayton could see him as the bad guy all he wanted, he was pushed to this and he owed it to Limey and Reggie to see this through. To win. He couldn’t let them die for nothing, it wasn’t right. He’d fight tooth claw and nail for what he wanted, for what they had scarified to win. Clayton didn’t understand. Wouldn’t understand, not until he was faced with the same issue, the same scenario, would he ever understand what Frank was going through.   
  
“You know… I think I get it now,” Clayton spoke up, Fontaine didn’t turn to look at him, but it seemed the boy didn’t care if his audience was listening or not. “Everyone is a hero in their own mind, right? What do you see yourself as? A victim?”   
  
“Just tryna make ends meat, kid.”  
  
“Really?” He heard another laugh. “And you are doing.. a fantastic job at that.”  
  
“Save the sarcasm, kid,” Frank snarled, finally turning to fix him with a glare, Clayton glaring right back at him. “I don’t have the patience or the time.”   
  
Fontaine turned back to the screens, watching Jack walk through Arcadia. The kid was taking in the sights it seemed, staring in awe at the forest under the sea. If he recalled correctly, little Jack had always been fascinated by nature, just like Clayton had. Reading the books, looking at the pictures. He loved the forests the most, said they looked beautiful. By the looks of things that love hadn’t gone away, he was staring at everything with a look of happiness, a smile even flickered on his face for a brief moment.   
  
“Rolling Hills is over yonder, and the bathysphere station is as well. And then straight on to Ryan,” the level of hatred and contempt in his voice was not something he needed to act.   
  
Frank had never despised a human being in his life, they didn’t stir up a strong enough reaction, they were either an inconvenience or boring. Occasionally entertaining, but they were never important and certainly didn’t last long enough for the emotion of hatred to ever be brought up inside himself. Ryan had managed that. Annoyingly, Andrew Ryan was as stubborn as Frank was. A man that just didn’t know when they were beat. Why didn’t the old man just keel over and die already? Now he was just dragging this out.   
  
“On the surface, I once bought a forest,” Ryan’s voice cut in his thoughts and filled the room. Frank glared at the speaker, but the man continued to talk. Probably to boast. “The Parasites claimed that the land belonged to God, and demanded that I establish a public park there. Why? So the rabble could stand slack-jawed under the canopy and pretend that it was paradise earned. When Congress moved to nationalise my forest, I burnt it to the ground,” Fontaine raised an eyebrow. A quickly glance at the screens revealed a horrified Jack and when he looked in the reflection of the monitors he saw Clayton’s slack-jawed expression. “God did not plant the seeds of this Arcadia,” Ryan went on. “I did.”   
  
After that lovely little titbit of information the man finally hung up again. Thank god. Frank didn’t know how long he could sit and listen to Ryan go on and on. Parasites this and the choice of man that. He’d had to put up with it for twelve years and whist occasionally he got a chuckle out of them, now he was bored. He just wanted this man to die, the bastard was well past his sell by date.   
  
“Fucking bastard likes the sound of his own voice too much,” Frank mumbled, rubbing at his eyes tiredly. You got dizzy staring at those black and white screens too long.   
  
“He’s not the only one.”  
  
“Very funny,” he rolled his eyes, casting a glare at Clayton, expecting to find the boy glaring back at him, but Clayton wasn’t even looking at him. He was looking away, a frown on his face that hinted to being sad rather than angry. “Don’t look so down, kid,” Fontaine said, secretly pleased when Clayton looked up at him. “Think ‘bout it. Ryan’s gonna be dead, you and ya’ ma won’t be in any danger again… don’t that sound nice?”  
  
“You’re still here.”  
  
“You think I’m gonna hurt the only thing that’s gonna keep this city running?” He shook his head and laughed. “I need your ma alive kid and to control her, I need you alive too.”   
  
“Really?”   
  
“Obviously. City ain’t gonna run itself.”   
  
“You sure you’re not just lonely?” Clayton countered, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes. “I mean… you’ve been on your own for a year now, right? That can’t be good for your mental state.”   
  
Fontaine rolled his eyes and snorted. “Lonely? Ha! Hardly. Look at me kid!”  
  
“I am, that’s why I asked.”   
  
“I ain’t lonely!” Frank snarled, pointing angrily at him. “Zip it! I gotta guide this fuckin’ puppet from point A to point B without any sort of interruption. So keep ya’ trap shut.”   
  
He turned back to the screens watching them, seeing that Jack was getting close to the bathysphere port. All Arcadia was gonna be was a quick stop. Damn it all, Frank wished he didn’t have to keep changing spheres, would make it a hell of a lot easier, but at least this way the kid could pick up supplies. That was better than nothing.   
  
As Jack approached the door to the Rapture Metro, it slammed shut and then something… cloudy appeared over the cameras, fogging them up and once it cleared the trees were dying. The leaves fell off and the wood looked dark and dead. Even the grass looked sickly and Jack looked distressed and confused. Spinning around and staring at all the trees, eyes wide and mouth agape.   
  
Fontaine had a similar expression, before snapping his mouth shut and fumbling for his radio, still looking over the image that lay before.   
  
“This isn’t right…” he mumbled into the radio before speaking to Jack directly. “I’m gonna need you to listen to me. I’m no sort of botanist, but I think Ryan just killed Arcadia,” he glanced to the left of him as Clayton was suddenly standing by his side, staring at the images with a look of horror. Arcadia had always been Clayton’s favourite place, if Frank recalled correctly the kid had a lot of fond memories in that place. “The man’s put something foul into the air,” he clenched the radio a little tighter as everything dawned on him all at once. “Bottom of the ocean, boyo. All the oxygen comes from the trees. No trees,” he went on, looking at Clayton who seemed to be working something out in his head. “No oxygen. Give me a spell to think.”   
  
He put the radio down and turned to Clayton with a look of desperation in his eyes. He knew the kid would want to save the trees, not only that, but Clayton still had a mind to see the surface. The kid wasn’t going to want to die down here.  
  
“Okay, kid. You know that place better than anyone, how we gonna fix it?”   
  
“I.. I don’t know, I’m thinking…”   
  
“Hurry it up, kid. I need to give him an answer and fast, let’s make it snappy,” he snapped his fingers several times to emphasise his point.   
  
“Shut up, don’t rush me!”  
  
“Oh, I’m sorry, is this a bad time?”   
  
“Langford!”   
  
“What?”   
  
“Julie Langford,” Clayton repeated. “She’s the head botanist of Arcadia. She made it. It’s her life’s work, you know what everyone in Rapture was like about their life’s work. She’ll want to save the trees!”   
  
Frank turned back to the radio, pressing the button so he could talk and placing his over hand over Clayton’s mouth so the kid didn’t get any bright ideas. Little bastard could be tricky, he wasn’t leaving anything to chance.  
  
“Ryan’s woman in Arcadia is an old betty named Langford. An okay sort, but not above doing a dirty job for a dollar,” yes his wallet knew that all too well after taking a hit when she started doing business in the oxygen game. “If she’s still kicking around, I’m sure she’s gonna want to save her trees. After all, she planted the damn things.”   
  
He lowered the radio and sighed, as once again, another thing hindered his progress. That kid better know what he was doing and he better be able to find Langford quickly.  
  
“I hope your secret weapon is everything you paid for,” Clayton said, turning to him and the boy finally looked frightened. “Because if he messes this up… we’re all dead.”

* * *

  
_Edna Clarice,_   
  
_Two birds with one stone:_   
  
_Now we have to pay to… my god, is there nothing sacred anymore? We have to pay to walk through Arcadia. A walk in the woods. I have to pay to be able to walk in the woods. This is… well I’m all for paying your way but this is getting ridiculous! Money doesn’t grow on trees- except… maybe it could… yes, yes! Kill two birds with one stone. I can stay here and wouldn’t have to pay in the process. Brilliant!_


	8. Five Minutes More

_Andrew Ryan,_   
  
_Offer a Better Product:_   
  
_Gregory, don’t come whining to me about market forces. And don’t expect me to punish citizens for showing a little initiative. If you don’t like what Fontaine is doing, well, I suggest you find a way to offer a better product._

* * *

  
The forest was dead. The once life filled air now stank of rot and decay. The leaves had already turned into mulch and was soggy under his feet as he walked.   
  
Jack tried the door for the bathyspheres station just incase, but the door didn’t move. He was trapped in here until l he presumably fixed this problem.   
  
“Damn city’s built to not let anyone out in the event of this kind of emergency,” Atlas explained sounding bitter and resentful. “Either we get those trees back, or you’re a permanent resident.”   
  
He swallowed uncomfortably and was about to suck in a large gulp of air, but stopped himself, feeling like that would just add insult to injury. He’d be wasting precious air. Every second counted and he needed to get a shift on to find a way to fix the trees. He wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to fix the trees, he’d… have to bring them back from the dead somehow.   
  
Atlas had told him he needed to find this.. Langford woman. He didn’t know who that was, but thankfully, it seemed she wasn’t far away, as the only building he’d seen in this place was right next to the Rapture Metro.   
  
A sign rested over the door reading ‘Langford Research Laboratories’ on a bright background. He’d never been more grateful to see an overly obnoxiously lit up sign in his life.   
  
Running through the doors, glad that these ones lifted up, he found another set of doors, but those didn’t open.   
  
Jack pulled out his wrench, ready to use it against the doors and try to get in. He felt like he was already struggling to breath. Complete imagination he knew, it was only his panic making him believe that. Now it wasn’t just the splicers he had to worry about but the gradually dwindling oxygen supply.   
  
Two screens sat either side of the door and they suddenly came to life, with a woman’s face appearing on them. Blonde hair and wearing big round glasses, a serious look on her face. She looked like a no nonsense kind of woman, but Jack was starting to get the feeling that was the look of all the women in Rapture. They were nothing but professionalism, never anything else. He even imagined that these women treated flirting and romance like a business transaction, rather than put any emotion into it.   
  
“My trees! It wasn’t you was it?” She accused, but then seemed to come to a conclusion all by herself. “No… Ryan,” she practically spat the name out, there was so much distaste and hatred in her words, she clearly hated this man as much as everyone else. Or maybe she simply loathed him. Jack was starting to feel like those two emotions were the only emotions you could feel for Andrew Ryan. Hatred or loathing.   
  
“I might have a way to save the tress,” she explained. “It’s a genetic vector that- oh.. look who I’m talking to,” she scoffed, Jack imagined she’d be rolling her eyes about now. “Can you get a sample of Rosa Galleca? I have to keep working while there’s still time…”   
  
The screen cut out, but Jack was already out the door, running out of the entrance and taking out any splicers that he came across. Even taking a moment to deal with a Big Daddy and save its Little Sister, once again absorbing her ADAM and killing the slug without harming her.   
  
He felt like he was in a blind panic as he ran. All around him the splicers muttered and attacked him. Screaming anything ranging from ‘this was our home’ and ‘he’s the poison, kill him’ though Jack felt like that name belonged to Ryan and rightly so. The bastard had destroyed the whole of Arcadia with just a simply push of a button with no regard to what it might actually mean for everyone else. Or maybe Ryan did and simply didn’t care. That sounded close to the truth and Jack was disgusted with this mad man’s actions and how little he seemed to care about other people. How could someone be so heartless?   
  
Turned out the Rosa Galleca wasn’t too hard to find. It was next to a waterfall, a lovely picturesque area with a water wheel and roses, big, beautiful, red roses grew all over it. The whole area was lit up and the water was the cleanest water Jack had seen in the place. The only thing that marred the scene was the dead body in the corner, slumped over and clutching an audio diary in their dead grasp. Jack didn’t have time to listen to it, however. Time was of the essence.   
  
Picking one of the roses off the plant, ripping his skin on a few thorns in the process, he began making his way back to Langford’s lab, tackling a horde of splicers that charged him. No doubt they were sent by Ryan. Jack didn’t see what the point was. Did Ryan really want him dead that much, that depriving the city of oxygen wasn’t enough?   
  
He wondered just what had Atlas done to anger this man so much other than disagree with him? Yes there was the war, but surely there’d been a moment before that? There had to be? Or was Ryan truly this petty?   
  
As Jack ran, he almost stumbled, but not because of any of the dead bodies he’d left in his wake, but for the sudden and startling fact that he’d known exactly where the roses were. How… how did he know that? It was like he had a mini map in his head, like an eidetic memory for a place he’d never seen before and yet he felt like he knew this place. It.. it felt like home and in a.. twisted way, despite the dead bodies and the carnage, Jack… liked it here.   
  
At first he’d tried to deny such thoughts. How could he like a place as horrendous as this? But as time had gone on, he suddenly realised that he did like this place. He thought it was beautiful and a true monument of human success. He almost found it funny that success was often synonymous with failure. In this case with Rapture it went hand in hand. It was an astounding success and a resounding failure all on it’s own.   
  
Was it the city that had failed or the people? Were human beings really so ugly inside that they’d cause this much destruction to a place so beautiful?  
  
These.. splicers, these people and non people had destroyed themselves, each other and their very home.. all for what? The ability to have the power of the gods at their fingertips? Sacrifice their lives, their minds, just so they could throw fire out of their hands and destroy the world around them? Was that all human beings were good for? Jack didn’t want to think that was true. He couldn’t allow himself to believe that this world around him, the city that lay before him couldn’t be a reflection of humanity. It just couldn’t be.   
  
Desperately, while he started running again, he tried to think of the beauty of the world. Of Tenenbaum repenting for the sins and saving the girls, for the beauty of Arcadia and Atlas trying so hard to save the few good people in Rapture. Maybe he didn’t go about it in the best way, maybe he’d gone about it in the only way left for them, but he’d tried. He’d fought for the people and tried to bring them justice, it was just unfortunate that men like Andrew Ryan didn’t play fair. They never would.   
  
For a man who preached about choice and the ability to chose. Saying that free will was the most important thing in this world, the only thing that Ryan truly respected, he took an awful lot of it away.   
  
The pheromones, the random announcements over the intercom system declaring curfews, the death of Fontaine simply because Ryan didn’t like the competition, it all boiled down to one thing. Choice. The lack of choice, Ryan stole it from everyone, denying them their freedom so he could rule his city with an iron grip.   
  
The irony wasn’t lost on Jack.   
  
There was only one way this was going to end. Jack knew that and he wouldn’t be able to tell you how or why he knew, but he just knew that this nightmare would only end with Ryan dead. That was the only way any of them were getting out of here. The only way any of them would be free.   
  
Andrew Ryan had to die, so that Rapture and Jack could live.

* * *

  
Emilie Lokken sat down on the steps outside Fort Frolic, pulling out her packet of cigarettes and lighting it up with her lighter. She’d have to find a box of matches soon. Either that or fish around in someone’s pockets for another lighter. Problem was, not that many people had them on their person anymore. They’d all spliced up with incinerate. You didn’t need a match or a lighter when you only had to snap your fingers and hey presto!   
  
Blowing the smoke out of the corner of her mouth, she rubbed at her eyes tiredly. This.. place, this whole situation was a mess. Clayton had gotten caught by Fontaine, that bastard had her son. She was going to kill him. Even if she got Clayton back in one piece, Em was going to kill Fontaine, she’d already made up her mind.   
  
This was all his fault. The world would be better off without him, her world certainly was. He was like a ghost that haunted her and he wasn’t even dead yet. Maybe it was the constant reminder that she’d been a fool and opened up to him, fallen in love with one of his acts. Danced to his tune and did it all with a smile on her face and love in her heart.   
  
She was bitter and angry. Worried for her son and angry with him too. He shouldn’t of left the safe house, but Clayton hadn’t been one to listen to rules and he very rarely did what he was told. Just like his damn mother, she supposed, the only person she could blame was herself. She’d taught him to be headstrong after all. So had Fontaine and that irritated her more than she cared to admit.   
  
To this day she didn’t understand the relationship between Fontaine and her son. She knew she didn’t like it, but she never understood it. They were always so close. Fontaine was even kind to her son, he’d taught him how to look after himself at times, even gave him weapons to defend himself. She’d since worked out that the crossbow had been a cleverly vailed apology. The man would never say the words, so he showed it through actions or items.  
  
Em sucked in another dose of smoke into her lungs, blowing it up to the ceiling and closing her eyes. The smoke burned her lungs and it almost felt like ecstasy. She’d been so numb in recent times, that the burning pain felt like a relief. A reminder that she could still feel, no matter how painful it was, it let her know she was still alive.   
  
“My dear Ms Em, it has been a while… too long in fact, I did miss our lovely little conversations.”   
  
She jumped, spinning around and felt her eyes widened when she saw him. Cohen.   
  
Emilie hadn’t seen him since 1957 she didn’t think. It was hard to remember now, days just seemed to morph into one and she wasn’t entirely sure what year it was. Not without thinking really hard and working it out. Everything just blurred together after a while.   
  
Sander Cohen was dressed in a ripped and torn tux, his face was caked in white stage makeup and he had false eyelashes it looked like or maybe those were painted on. It was hard to tell and then there was the bright red lipstick, he looked like a clown or maybe a mime. A very deranged, very unpredictable mime and certainly not someone she wanted to see again. Not right now either.   
  
“Cohen… you’re looking… well,” she replied hesitantly. You always had to be careful with what you said and how you said it with him. He could take a simple ‘hello’ as an insult.   
  
“Well, but terribly bored, Ms Lokken or is it Ms Atlas now?”   
  
Emilie was surprised that her little romance had reached Cohen. Though, from what she remembered of the man, he always did have a funny way of finding things out for himself. She could never figure out how, but she supposed it was better she didn’t know.   
  
“We’re not together anymore.”  
  
“Oh my, such a shame. I was routing for you two… that man is quite a biscuit… what happened?”   
  
“As boring as this will be for you, he wasn’t who I thought he was.”   
  
“Ugh, aren’t they all? You think you find that one who sends your heart a flutter and they turn out to be nothing but backstabbing bastards and louts with no sense of adventure or culture! Betrayal, I feel, hurts and hits the most…”   
  
He wasn’t wrong… that irked her a little more.   
  
Sighing and rubbing at her eyes, she nodded her head in agreement. Though it was a reluctant agreement. It almost felt like she admitting what had happened. That she’d been such a goddamn idiot in the first place to fall for that bastard. Believed him, loved him, allowed herself to finally be so open with someone and tell them things she hadn’t told anyone. She told Fontaine of all people nearly everything about herself.   
  
“On that we can agree…” she mumbled, taking another drag from the cigarette, gazing at the glowing red cherry end that seemed so enticing. Would it hurt? She’d been through so much pain she hardly felt injuries anymore, just brushed it off and kept moving.   
  
Cohen came down a few of the steps, staring at her and she watched him equally out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t trust him for a moment, though Cohen always seemed to like her, so maybe she’d be in the clear. Then again it was hard to tell.   
  
“My dear, you seem so… sad.”   
  
“I am… Sander,” Em found herself admitting, staring at that glowing cherry, “I am.”

* * *

  
“You better be coming up with something, kid,” Frank hissed pacing back and forth.  
  
Clayton sat at the controls flicking through the cameras and the various notes Fontaine had collected. He picked them up and tried to make seven of them, but they were mostly a mess and he was having a hard time deciphering Fontaine’s hand writing.  
  
“It’s hard!” He snapped back. “You could’ve been a bit more organised?”   
  
“Does it look like I got a filing cabinet?!” Frank snapped at him, his eyes going back to the screens. “Is he almost back yet?”   
  
“Yes, almost,” Clayton said, flicking through another set of notes. “You didn’t note much about Arcadia. There’s a lot missing here.”  
  
“It’s not important.”  
  
“Yeah, the place that produces the oxygen is always not important to you people,” the boy mumbled. “Some idiots even said that we should get rid of Arcadia. How stupid can you be?” He frowned a little. “Jack will need things. Components.”   
  
“And do you know what those components are?”   
  
The little boy turned to give him a very long and very even look. There were moments where Fontaine could really see himself in the kid. Some of Clayton’s little ticks and twitches were very much his own and it was unnerving sometimes to see them thrown back at him. Glances and glares, little mannerisms that Frank was fully aware that he did and Clayton would shoot back at him or sometimes other people. Of course, there was a lot more of his mother in him and Clayton as himself had developed his own mannerisms, most noticeably the fact he fiddled with the watch Fontaine had given him all those years ago when he was nervous or worried.   
  
Now Clayton was treating Fontaine to one of his ‘are you serious?’ faces and he couldn’t say he blamed him. He was panicking a little, only a little, suffocating was not the way he wanted to die so in his defence he felt like he was allowed to panic just a little.  
  
“What do I look like to you? A botanist?”  
  
“Can it with the sass, kid!”   
  
The boy sighed and turned back to the notes. He frowned at the collection, looked through them again, before throwing his hands up in the air in defeat. Useless, was the obvious conclusion Clayton had come to.   
  
“I can’t help. The only chance we have is Langford. I’m just a kid,” he rolled his eyes. “What did you expect me to cook up some kind of miracle?”  
  
“You made your own sniper rifle, I wouldn’t say it’d be too far off.”   
  
“That’s mechanics that’s not-.”  
  
“Shhh! Hold on a second,” he pointed to the screen, seeing that Jack was now outside of Langford’s own lab.   
  
Julie Langford was the greatest botanist in Rapture. She’d made Arcadia herself after all, she’d been brilliant and designed everything to the utmost detail. Taking the time and effort to make every element in Arcadia natural and the environment perfect for the plant life as well as the few insects they had in the place. The long and short of it was, that Arcadia was exceptionally designed and it was clearly visible in every aspect of the place. Even the war hadn’t ravaged the wondrous under water forest like it had the rest of the city. Arcadia still held its beauty, even if some of the grassy verges were now marred with dead bodies and blood, it was merely the circle of life on show.   
  
The bodies would in time be broken down and simply become part of the soil and earth. The world around them would deteriorate, any man made element that still existed would eventually be swallowed up by the patch of nature they had. Maybe Arcadia would even spread through the rest of Rapture if it didn’t leak too much.   
  
Still, for all her greatness, Julie Langford could not predict what Ryan would do next and a matter of fact neither did Frank. Quite frankly, Fontaine didn’t think or believe that Ryan was that insane, but apparently the man could still surprise him. That fact alone irritate the conman, but at the same time he could only watch on in abject horror as Ryan killed Langford by poisoning her with the same gas he’d used to kill the trees. At least that’s what it looked like on the screen.   
  
Jack had tried to batter open the door or destroy the glass blocking him from Langford, but giving him a clear view of what was happening. A mostly clear view at least, soon the gas took up most of the screen and the glass which allowed Langford to briefly write down a series of numbers before collapsing dead.   
  
The door to her office opened and the toxic gas seeped out of the room, evaporating into the dwindling oxygen supply and Frank’s horror only grew. Not at the death of Langford more in the death of their only solution to this problem of theirs.  
  
How in the hell were they supposed to do anything now? It couldn’t be all over. Ryan couldn’t win, he couldn’t just pull the plug like this. All that planning for nothing. A waste, no that couldn’t be true, he wouldn’t allow it, but he’d certainly make his anger be known.   
  
“Every time we get a yard ahead, Ryan goes and moves the goal line down to the other end of the field!”   
  
He’d almost slipped into his own voice while snarling down the radio. Clayton was watching the screen, his eyes fixated on Langford’s body. Another body to add to the growing pile. Did Frank add hers to his own or Ryan’s?   
  
Technically everyone’s death was Ryan’s fault. He’d pushed Fontaine to the edge, so Fontaine pushed back and then the man made the fatal mistake of taking the only people that meant something to him away from him. So fine, he’d kill the bastard for Reggie and Limey, that’s what he’d tell himself when he knew in reality he’d take a sick pleasure out of it.   
  
Killing was not a pleasurable experience for Fontaine. Despite what people would think, he never killed for pleasure, he simply killed for convenience. Solving a problem. Dealing with a disgruntled employee became so much easier when you could slug a bullet between their eyes or drown them in the conveniently placed ocean surrounding this little slice of hell. Business was business, that was all, but he wouldn’t and couldn’t deny that killing Ryan would certainly give him great pleasure. Probably be the best feeling he’d felt in a long time. Maybe ever.   
  
His only regret, if any, would be that it wasn’t going to be him delivering the final blow. Sure, he’d give the order, but he’d never get the rush that Jack would get. There was something slightly unfair about that, but at the same time he could take a sick pleasure, quite possibly a sicker pleasure, in knowing that Jack was going to do the killing. Making Ryan’s own flesh and blood kill him, have the boy kill his own father.   
  
A psychologist would probably tell him that he hadn’t gotten over his own issues with his father and that’s why he took so much issue with authority and Ryan. Hell, the many little ticks and nuances that Fontaine had would be a psychiatrist’s field day. A candy land of deep seated issues and crippling dependency. It wasn’t any drug or alcohol that Fontaine was dependent on, it was the thrill of a good con. The high he achieved whenever anyone fell for the con and being Atlas had been nothing short of a constant high. An adrenaline rush that filled his veins and cut out the voices of the past, giving him a small splash of endorphins and serotonin to make living just that little bit easier. To cut out the helpless cries of a little boy, calling for a father that would never come, curled up on that disgusting bed bug ridden bed. Brown eyes wide and frightened, staring into the endless dark of the orphanage while his father went off to bang two bit whores and drink himself to death.   
  
Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, it very rarely did and as an adult Frank found himself following the same patterns his father had. Destroying himself with smokes, booze and highs. Finding himself more often than not seated between a woman’s thighs desperately chasing that blissful relief and empty headedness he craved more often than he’d like to admit.   
  
He was self-destructive, his mind would work against him at times, with whispering voices of a young boy long dead now. Scared voice of child asking simple questions to an adult that couldn’t answer them, but desperately wondered the same thing.   
  
_Why? What did I do? Was there something wrong with me? Was I not good enough?_   
  
Placating those whispers simply to silence them, he’d find himself muttering quietly while looking in the mirror.  
  
 _I don’t know. You didn’t do anything wrong. There was nothing wrong with you. You were always good enough._   
  
Frank was a well accomplished liar. The sad thing was, he had never been very good at lying to himself and then that childish voice would change to the cutting voice of an angry teenager who’d yell and cuss him out.  
  
 _What do you mean ya’ don’t know?! We must of done something wrong! There had to be something wrong with me! Why the fuck was I never good enough!?_   
  
That was when the self loathing kicked in and that was when it became time for another round of self-destruction and bad decision making.   
  
In the end all of it, the conning, the drinking, the smoking, the sex, the drugs- it all came back to one simple thing and that was Frank couldn’t get over his issues with his father. So he did what any coward would do in his position, he ran away. He hid them under the layers of highs and drinks, smother and choke those voices on the smoke of another lit cigar or cigarette.   
  
The sins of the father do not define the child some would say, but in Frank’s case the sins of the father caused the child and thus the child did not know how else to be.   
  
“He’ll need to go to the farmer’s market.”   
  
Fontaine blinked back to himself, realising that he’d gotten lost in his own head and that was why he didn’t like doing it. If spent too much time in your head you’d gradually loose your mind, that was a given. There was also the problem that Frank would miss things happening in the real world when he was in his head and that was bad for business.   
  
“What?”   
  
“Farmer’s market,” Clayton repeated, eyeing him cautiously. It felt like the boy could see right through him and Fontaine hated it. “Some of the ingredients that Jack needs are around the Market.”   
  
“To make what?”  
  
“The genetic vector…?” The boy’s eyes took on a look of worry. “Are you alright?”   
  
Frank narrowed his eyes at him, a silent warning not to tread any closer to that question. “Worry about ya’self, kid,” he snarled, before lifting the radio to his face and speaking to Jack in that charming Irish lit. “Arcadia’s a big place, but mostly rural. If you’re looking for something in particular, I’d start at the Farmer’s Market.”  
  
He idly watched his little genetic freak make his way towards his destination, killing splicers that got in his way and still saving those damn brats. It irritated Frank that Jack had chosen to save the little ADAM factories. Why couldn’t he see the truth? Why couldn’t he see that they’re not human? That they’re monsters!   
  
_Because he’s able to face the truth, unlike you._  
  
He scowled at the whispered voice in his head, quickly taking out another cigarette and lighting it. He wasn’t sure how many this was now, but if the pain in his lungs was anything to go by, it was certainly a lot.   
  
Pain was good, however. Pain meant you were still alive, so in many ways he welcomed that burning pain of cigarette smoke like a lover’s embrace. Like he was welcoming back an old friend.  
  
Fontaine sighed and stood up from his seat, taking the radio with him, while he dug through supplies and finally found what he was looking for. A bottle of whisky and two glasses.   
  
Returning back to the desk, he poured the drink into the glasses, giving himself a lot more than normal, before putting the bottle on the floor. Wordlessly he slid the other glass other to Clayton, who eyed the liquid like it was a wild animal. Fontaine would tell him not to worry because it couldn’t bite, but that would be wrong since whisky always bit back. It burned your throat as it went down and made you feel warm, another little tool to remind himself he was still alive.   
  
“You gonna stare at it or are ya’ gonna drink?”  
  
“I tried alcohol before,” Clayton said, eyeing it. “I didn’t like it.”  
  
“That’s because you weren’t taught how,” he nudged the glass to him again. “Go on. I’ll teach ya’.”  
  
“Why..?”   
  
Fontaine shrugged. “S’not like we got anything better to do, is it? All on the kid now and besides,” he went on, picking up his own drink and grinning manically at the kid. “If he fails we’re dead so, drinks!”   
  
Clayton hesitated, but he eventually picked up the glass, holding it away from himself and eyeing it once more. He turned his gaze to Fontaine and rose an eyebrow at him.   
  
Frank clicked his glass with Clayton’s and flashed him a grin.  
  
“He’s to not dying,” he said. “And to the soon to be bloody corpse of Andrew Ryan.”   
  
Clayton hesitated in lifting up the glass to his lips while Fontaine downed the whole thing. He coughed and choked on the burn, but was soon pouring himself another dose of southern comfort while Clayton continued to stare at his.  
  
“Oh c’mon, kid,” he smirked. “Don’t leave me hanging. Take a sip and swallow it.”   
  
“What if I don’t like it?”   
  
“Then we’ll try again, I mean we’ve got the rest of your life to teach ya’, right?” Frank eyed the screens again and grimaced. “Though that might not mean much right now, so ya’ might wanna drink up.”   
  
The boy sighed and clicked his glass again, before taking a sip. Clayton was right, he didn’t like it, but it was worth it just to see the look on the boy’s face.   
  
“Never mind, kid,” Frank laughed. “You’ll grow into it.”

* * *

  
_Edna Clarice,_   
  
_New job:_   
  
_Well here we are… I’m a gardener for Arcadia, don’t have to pay to get in because I never leave, I don’t need to. I’ve got everything I need right here. The grass, the water, food and the small slivers of sunlight… ah yes… truly the gods have blessed me with such a place._


	9. Don’t sit under the Apple tree

_Julie Langford_   
  
_Cults:_   
  
_Cults now is it? Edna the poor girl is convinced she’s some high priestess from Ancient Greece born anew and is encouraging other lunatics to join her. They haven’t got a name yet, I have a few suggestions but I’m not sure they’d take to them._

* * *

  
Despite not knowing where he was going, Jack’s feet seemed to know the way. Almost like it was muscle memory, they guided him through the decaying forest, set on the mission of finding this Farmer’s Market. Thankfully, things in Rapture also seemed to be sign posted, so if his feet failed him he’d be able to work out where he was going through the sign postage.   
  
Because dwindling oxygen wasn’t enough to worry about, there was also the disappearing and reappearing splicers that seemed to be part of a cult. They were dressed in leaves and had decorated their clothes with some sort of paint. All around Arcadia were glowing symbols that had been painted on the wall. Jack didn’t know what these symbols meant, he didn’t know if the splicers themselves had made them up or stolen them.   
  
Knowing the people of Rapture it was probably the latter.   
  
Jack shuddered a little, tightening his fingers around his shotgun, his preferred weapon of choice. Sure it might be a little bulky, but it was better than the machine gun which barely seemed to damage the splicers at all. If anything it only just made a mark with them sometimes. Especially the teleporting splicers. Those seemed to be the toughest. Even stronger than the spider splicers that crawled across the ceiling like the creatures they were named after.   
  
Those splicers really did unnerve Jack. They cackled and sang. Sometimes the tiles from the ceiling would come loose and fall, the only hint that you were being followed by something unseen. There didn’t seem to be any in Arcadia, this place was mostly ruled by the teleporting splicers and their cult.   
  
Pushing through the chaos, Jack made his way to the Farmer’s Market. He had to go through another bulkhead to get to the market place, shooting one more cult member, this one was a woman dressed a lot fancier than the rest. At the first bullet she bolted and ran off somewhere, Jack felt like he might see her again, so he kept all his wits about him while he explored the market place.   
  
Decorated lanterns were scattered across the floor, their lights flickering a little inside. The smell of decay was heavy in the air, with an undertone of rotting food. The various stores had some of their produce out on display, but it was all bad and rotten. Flies buzzed around it energetically, periodically landing on the food.   
  
Jack gazed around the area, finding it oddly beautiful. He could see what the Farmer’s Market had once been. The amount of care and love that had gone into building this area of Rapture. It almost looked like a Market back topside. If he closed his eyes, he could probably imagine himself standing in the sunshine in a market like this one.   
  
He kept working his way through the market place. Occasionally hearing the sounds of cameras watching him. Atlas as always keeping an eye on him. It was comforting to know he had someone watching his back and guiding him through the city, even if there were moments when it felt like Jack didn’t need any guidance.   
  
Of course his walks through the city were not simple or easy. There were splicers coming at him from every angle. Screaming a barrage of words at him. He caught them sometimes, other times he didn’t. Jack would argue that not being able to understand what they were saying then being able to. If he could understand them, that meant they were human. Remembering that small detail made killing hard and yet, Jack found he was scarily good at it. Without any hesitation he knew how to reload any of the guns. Like he’d been trained, but that wasn’t right because Jack had never touched a gun in his life.   
  
Rapture made him feel like he didn’t know himself. Not truly. Every time he thought he knew something about himself, he’d perform an action here that almost felt like second nature and then realise he didn’t know himself at all. This city was starting to give him startling revelations about himself, he wasn’t too sure he liked them. All the killing he was being forced to do and yet he did it almost without hesitation now. He was also unnervingly good at it and it almost made him feel like… this was what he was born to do.   
  
_‘Son, you’re special, you were born to do great things.’_   
  
Who had said that? His parents surly and yet at the same time, it felt infinitely wrong. He couldn’t remember or pin those words on either of his parents. Not his father or his mother. They were simple farmers who lived their life quietly in Kansas and then… then Jack had to take the airplane to England to see his cousins… then came the crash… and… he couldn’t remember… things were fuzzy. Things that shouldn’t be fuzzy were now so hard to grasp.   
  
He couldn’t remember why he was visiting his cousins. He couldn’t even picture their faces, but he was twenty one, he’d known these people his whole life… he should know what they looked like, shouldn’t he?   
  
Jack tried. He tried so hard to focus, to remember these people he was meant to be seeing, but he couldn’t picture them. He couldn’t see them, couldn’t even remember a memory of them. There was nothing, just a blank slate and a half made story or history in his head.   
  
Had he injured his head? He knew that if you hit your head hard enough you could sometimes scramble your memories. Maybe in the crash he’d hit his head and… erased some parts of his life. It could happen couldn’t it? People sometimes forgot their whole names, so he should be able to forget about his family, that made the most logical sense.   
  
He stumbled in his walk and gripped the side of the wall, grabbing at his head and hissing in annoyance. It felt like another headache was coming on. He used to get them intermittently back topside, but now it felt like he was getting them all the time. Almost like Rapture was inflicting the headaches on him. Crazy talk, he knew that, but.. oh, maybe the splicers were rubbing off on him? If you stayed around crazy sometimes you’d catch it right? Maybe.. he didn’t know. By the sounds of things he didn’t even know his own family so what could he say about any sort of information. He was obviously not a reliable source. A liar.  
  
Jack pushed off the wall and walked through, heading towards the silver wing. He needed to go there for the ingredients that was required to fix Arcadia. To bring the trees back to life.   
  
In her dying moments Langford had been able to write the code to her safe and inside was the key to the Market place and the recorded formula for something she called the Lazarus Vector.   
  
_“What’s the point of being a damn genius if the only ones around to appreciate it are a bunch of spliced up morons? I’ve cracked the Vector, or at least I’m 99% certain I have. I just need a bud of Rosa Gallica to confirm my analysis. Distilled Water, a bit of chlorophyll and enzymes extracted from Apis Mellifera. That’s right, sweethearts: honeybee spit.”_   
  
Thankfully, because of the cult, he’d been able to gather the chlorophyll. They’d been collecting it to give to their gods apparently. So Jack stole it from their shrines and he’d unfortunately had to kill the owners of the shrines, but he’d collected enough of the solution. Then it was just the bee enzymes and the water.   
  
The Apery was his first stop, running to the back of the shop and finding that it had been turned into a giant bee hive. Yes there were the hives the bees were supposed to use, but some honey cone now hung from the ceiling. It almost looked like several bee colonies had merged together to create one giant one. The bees buzzed around their hive, entering this place was near suicide. The bees would not take kindly to an intruder, but he could see the enzymes. Stored at the back in a neat rack. Looked like others had been experimenting with these enzymes, unless it had been Julie all along.   
  
Jack looked over the controls, noticing one that released the smoke which calmed the bees down. He couldn’t remember it’s name right now and he wasn’t sure how long the effect would last, but all that was irrelevant. He flicked the switch and watched as the gas was released, calming the bees but there was a timer.   
  
He ran quickly, snatching up the enzymes and putting them in his bag as the timer continued to tick down. The ticking sound was soon drowned out by the sounds of screaming splicers. Sounding more enraged than he’d heard them. Did they think he’d come to steal their honey? Jack wasn’t too sure, but he prepared his shotgun running towards the oncoming attack that ran to him.   
  
The splicers were carrying rakes or other pieces of gardening equipment, brandishing them like they were weapons. He was able to shoot a few of them, some he had to get a bit more physical with, blocking a strike with a rake using his shotgun. He hit a few with electro bolt, another one with incinerate, casting it to run and crash into a hive, knowing it over. The bees reacted immediately and started to attack the splicer who’d destroyed their home and Jack heard the final tick of the countdown ring.   
  
He shoved the other splicers out of the way, making a bolt for the door. The bees began to swarm their home once more, Jack got stung a few times and he battered them away as best he could. The splicers were not so lucky, swinging their tools around, but making the fatal mistake of standing still.   
  
Jack watched in horror as their faces began to puff up and become bloated. The bees kept stinging again and again, until the splicers fell down dead. The young man was out of there as soon as the doors opened, running out into the store front, leaning against the wall a moment to catch his breath. That had been a close one. He didn’t want to die being stung to death, that wasn’t a way he wanted to die. He didn’t want that to be his end.   
  
He brushed his hair out of his face. It was a mess since he’d climbed out of the sea. Drying off in odd angles, sticking up at odd ends. Jack’s sweater was stained and bloody. The blood had been soaked up by the sweater, following the pattern like a grotesque paint job. It reminded him of Steinman and the man’s work. All those women… all those lives and faces ruined by one man and his insane dream. Sounded a lot like someone else he knew.   
  
Jack took a step to leave, but he eyed and audio diary, picking it up and running his hands over it. These things were little slices of history and he’d enjoyed listening to them. A nice distraction from the carnage, so once again, he pressed play on this one. Words couldn’t describe how surprised he was when he heard a child’s voice coming through the speakers. It was a little boy, Jack read the name on the diary seeing ‘Clayton Lokken’ messily scrawled across the name tag.   
  
_“Rule number two; have at least two or more ways out of a bad situation. I… don’t know why I’d need this but Mister Fontaine says it’s important.”_   
  
So this kid knew Fontaine…but how? Lokken… Lokken… like Emilie Lokken? That made sense, she did work for Fontaine so that must be how the boy knew him, but how… how did..? Why was Fontaine so invested in this kid that he decided to teach him things. Teach him a rule apparently and more than one.   
  
For the briefest moment, Jack felt a sting of jealously for this boy getting Fontaine’s attention and not him, but he shook his head. Scowling at himself and complete idiotic feeling. Why was he jealous of a relationship between a man and a boy he didn’t know. Ridiculous.   
  
He dropped the diary and continued on his journey away from this place. The bees had been oddly scary. He didn’t want anything else to do with them, safe to say he wasn’t going to look at bees on the surface the same way. Especially not after his encounter with the splicers being stung to death. Just remembering their faces made him shudder.  
  
Jack walked down the rest of the glass corridor, heading towards the winery. He watched as a school of fish swam overhead. They seemed so free. So peaceful and carefree, not knowing the chaos going on behind closed doors in this place. Animals in many ways were the only true thing that was free in this place. They weren’t governed by rules, except maybe the laws of nature and that they didn’t even know existed. The concept meant nothing to them and they were free to live their life.   
  
Pulling attention away from the fish, Jack watched the door to the winery open and found two dead splicers in front of him. A man and a woman, both wearing those masquerade masks that seemed so popular.   
  
“Why do they wear those masks?” Atlas’s voice cut through the hazy silence. Jack hadn’t heard him in a while, maybe the man was concerned about conserving oxygen. “Maybe there’s a part of them that remembers how they used to be, how they used to look. And they’re ashamed.”   
  
That hypothesis wasn’t helping Jack ignore the guilt he was feeling every time he put one of these bastards down. He didn’t need the helpful reminders that they were people once and he certainly didn’t need the casual suggestion that these people could remember their past lives. That they knew what they’d become so tried their best to hide away from their awful reality.   
  
He couldn’t focus on these things. He had to find that water. Clock was ticking, even now he felt like the air around him was getting thinner and thinner by the second. It was pure imagination he knew that, but he felt that maybe his imagination wasn’t too far from the truth.   
  
Turned out, finding the water wasn’t as hard as he thought it would be. It was scattered throughout the place, lying carelessly on the floor. He gathered as much as he needed, killing off splicers that got in his way. It would almost be over soon. Almost. Once he’d made the vector, he could continue on his journey to… do what again? What was the goal now? Atlas wanted Ryan dead and for some reason.. Jack did too. He felt a rage boiling up inside him every time he thought of the man.   
  
Enough of that, he couldn’t dwell. He needed to get back to Langford’s lab and make this thing. It was the only chance he had, that any of them had.

* * *

  
Clayton had returned to his place on the floor. His legs pulled up to chest, resting his head on his shoulder, watching the man that sat at the control panel. It felt like old times in a way. He remembered when he’d been little he’d watched Fontaine’s every movement, pure curiosity of a child that had never had a positive male role model and there was something about Fontaine that Clayton recognised.  
  
It was crazy. People would probably say he was mad if he told them, but the truth was, he felt like he’d known that Fontaine was an orphan the moment he saw him. There was just something about him that Clayton recognised. Perhaps it was the stubbornness or sense of entitled independence that came from living by yourself at an early age on the streets. You had to grow up fast or else you’d be dead.   
  
“What are you going to do to Jack?” He asked finally after staying silent for so long.   
  
It was a question that had bugged him ever since he realised who this was. He couldn’t believe that Fontaine had been so cruel. Stealing away a boy’s childhood, then again, he hadn’t exactly graced Clayton with much exclusion from that fate. His own childhood had been ripped away from him, all because of two selfish men playing their selfish games. In the long run it was pathetic, especially when they were fighting over, in Clayton’s opinion, a piece of trash. There was nothing left to Rapture anymore, it was just a pile of junk. Why didn’t they see that?   
  
Maybe they didn’t want to see it. Maybe for Fontaine it was all about the winning now.   
  
_“Kid, I’m gonna be honest, I ain’t in a great place right now. The me in this timeline. I ain’t gonna get any better… I only get worse.”_   
  
Clayton subconsciously reached his hand up to his neck, to the place he’d hidden the locket and was waiting to use it against Fontaine. Emotional manipulation was something that the man had taught Clayton how to do. It wouldn’t be hard for him to use it against Frank for once. Maybe help him get an upper hand.   
  
“What do you do with anythin’ ya don’t need anymore?” Frank countered, his eyes glued to the screen. “Ya’ get rid of it.”  
  
“That seems like a waste,” Clayton said carefully. “Also seems too cruel for you… you did raise him after all.”   
  
Fontaine turned to him and glared. His eyes narrowed, looking like he was judging Clayton critically. Almost like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The idea that he was suggesting Frank actually gave a damn about Jack. That the bastard meant something to him. It was maddening.   
  
“That kid ain’t a person. He’s a tool. Nothing more.”   
  
“Like me?”   
  
“What?”   
  
“I’m a tool aren’t I?” Clayton replied coldly. “Just a tool for you to use against my mum, well, I’m not gonna let you do that. I’m not gonna let you use me as some form of… bargaining chip!” 

Frank laughed at him. “Too late,” he lifted up the radio for Clayton to see. “I’ve already done it. You can’t stop it, kid. Just sit there and keep ya’ trap shut. You understand?”   
  
He laughed shaking his head at Fontaine. He was tempted to use the locket now, but it didn’t feel like the right time. He felt like he was waiting for something. A moment. Just one moment where everything was going to go to hell.   
  
The forest was burning and Fontaine still wanted to deny that he had emotion. That he cared. How truly sad and lonely that must be, Clayton couldn’t hate him. He only pitied him. You couldn’t be scared of someone you pitied.   
  
“You’re pathetic,” he said coldly. “You know… everyone was so scared of you and in reality… you’re just a sad, scared, bitter and resentful man who couldn’t get over daddy leaving him.”   
  
Fontaine lashed out immediately and Clayton had to dodge him. The boy scrambled to his feet as he watched Frank hit the wall where he had been. Even with this violent outburst Clayton wasn’t scared of him. Maybe it was because he knew the man Frank would eventually become or what he saw of him. Because he knew that no matter what Fontaine said, he still cared about Clayton. He was his son.   
  
“You don’t know anything!” Frank yelled pointing at him, his rage was barely contained. Clayton knew that now would be the moment Fontaine would yell all manner of things at him. “You’re just a stupid little kid! You know, I shouldn’t of given ya’ free reign- I should’ve of just tied you up!”   
  
“I’m a little old for a pacifier don’t you think?”   
  
“I said shut up!” He took a few steps towards him. “You think you’re gonna get under my skin with a few words? You don’t even know what you’re talking about!”  
  
“What would your mother think of this I wonder?” Clayton mused, taking a step towards him. “Oh her darling boy all grown up? Her little actor became nothing but a liar- I guess you forgot the one thing she taught you all those years ago, didn’t you?”   
  
Frank looked mildly put out and even disturbed by Clayton’s words. Haunted even. So this was a difficult subject for him. Interesting. He could use that. Fontaine had taught him after all, he could manipulate him, turn the tables.   
  
“And then you got Limey and Reggie killed…”   
  
“That wasn’t my fault!”   
  
“No, maybe not, but let’s be honest you’re not that torn up about it, are you?” Clayton tilted his head and even smiled. “You claimed you tried to talk Reggie out of taking your place. You’re a very convincing man, so you obviously didn’t try too hard. You’re probably pleased with the outcome. One last thing for you to worry about. Your two hangups are gone and dead. No one to hold you back now.”   
  
Clayton hadn’t been able to move in time this time round. Fontaine had moved like lightning, slamming the kid against the wall and wrapping his hands around his neck. There was a snarl on his face and he looked like he was contemplating squeezing and tightening his hold. It wouldn’t take much, Clayton imagined, to kill him. He was only a kid, Fontaine could easily snap his neck and would be met with little resistance.   
  
“There is always light, even in darkness!”   
  
Fontaine paused and stared at him. “What did you say?”   
  
Clayton reached up and pulled out the locket, quickly undoing it and holding it out to him.   
  
He reached for it, his hands were shaking and he held the locket delicately in his hands. He looked surprised to see it again, running his fingers over it. He opened the locket and almost chocked in shock when he saw the image. Obviously he hadn’t expected the image to still be there or maybe he thought Clayton was lying.   
  
“How…?” He whispered, looking up at Clayton with wide eyes. “How did you get this?”  
  
“That… is complicated.”   
  
“Where was it… I thought I lost…” he slammed Clayton’s shoulder against the wall. “Where was it?!”  
  
“The Silver Finn,” he replied calmly. “She’s very beautiful.”  
  
“She was…”   
  
“That story you told me,” he began looking up at him. “It was real, wasn’t it? What happened to her… I’m sorry, Da- Frank.”   
  
Fontaine was quiet a moment, looking up at him, staring at Clayton for a long time. He must of caught on to his almost mistake. He must of realised that Clayton had almost called him Dad. The boy knew that Fontaine was studying him, maybe trying to work out what he was doing and maybe how he could manipulate him in some way. He wouldn’t put it past this version of Fontaine to do something like that. Find some way to manipulate him.   
  
“Dad, huh?”   
  
Clayton winced and turned his head away from him. He didn’t want to look at him, not right now. It was all too much, he could feel his emotions starting to get the better of him. The onslaught of panic that was rising inside of him, begging to be released and come out as an attack against himself. He couldn’t afford that right now, not with their oxygen deteriorating as it was.   
  
Fontaine slipped the locket away in his pocket after tossing it in the air and catching it again. He bent down so he was more Clayton’s height and forced the kid to look at him, gaining a steely glare in return. The little boy was trying his damndest to keep himself composed, that much he could tell.   
  
“You really see me like that?” Frank asked and Clayton wanted to scream and hit him.   
  
“Do you have to ask?” He responded, glancing to the floor. “You should radio Jack again…” he mumbled, slowly sliding down to the floor and curling up again. “He’ll need help. You want to win, don’t you?”

* * *

  
_Andrew Ryan,_   
  
_Desperate Times:_   
  
_Doctor Suchong, frankly, I’m shocked by your proposal. If we were to modify the structure of our commercial Plasmid line as you propose, to have them make the user vulnerable to mental suggestions through pheromones, would we not be able to effectively control the actions of the citizens of Rapture? Free will is the cornerstone of this city. The thought of sacrificing it is abhorrent. However… we are indeed in a time of war. If Atlas and his bandits have their way, will they not turn us into slaves? And what will become of free will then? Desperate times call for desperate measures._


	10. Green Eyes

Julie Langford,   
  
Arcadia and Oxygen:   
  
Now I’m a woman of science, but I’l also a woman who’s not afraid of turning a buck of two. Ryan said if I could boost profits in Arcadia, part of the up would ride on my hip. So I get to thinking, we’re paying for oxygen when we got photosynthesising trees…. Hell, we can even sell the extra to the rest of the city and undercut the other guys. Ryan will like that for sure, Fontaine’s people have moved into the O2 biz tooth and claw.

* * *

  
Jack was racing through Arcadia, an alarm going off and little bots came flying towards him.   
  
“Don’t fight the inevitable,” Ryan mocked over the radio sounding very amused. “You’ll run out of oxygen soon, and then you’ll just go to sleep.”   
  
He grimaced at the idea of dying like that. It wasn’t a way he’d want to die, not that Jack had a preference when it came to meeting his death, but being suffocated was not one of them. Nor was being shot to a million pieces as he dodged another wave of bullets from the little security bots. He hit one with Electrobolt hacking it quick so he could use it against the others.   
  
He was almost back to Langford’s lab, but he came to a shuddering stop when he came face to face with a small group of Saturnine. The group of Houdini splicers that were a cult worshiping the ancient gods. Their leader was standing in the middle of them, judging him it seemed. They blamed him for their home but it wasn’t Jack, it had been Ryan.   
  
“You’re trying to fix the trees aren’t you,” their leader spoke, her voice still held the Australian accent she’d presumably grown up with. “You’re trying to fix our home, that Titan Ryan destroyed it… didn’t he?”   
  
“Yes…” Jack choked a little, his voice was scratchy and horse from disuse. Hell his own voice felt foreign to his own ears.   
  
“And you serve another Titan… you serve Atlas. The holder of the sky…”  
  
“I do…” he replied cautiously. He wasn’t sure if they considered Atlas an enemy or a friend.   
  
Edna nodded her head. “Atlas kept his war away from our home. We’re greatfull for that respect. Ryan destroyed our home,” she frowned and stood to the side, her arm outstretched in the direction of Langford’s lab. “You may pass. Bring mother Gier back to her full green. Destroy the poison flowing through her veins… in return we shall help you.”   
  
He breathed a sigh of relief, quickly running to the lab, glancing back to see the Houdini splicers form a protective wall around the entrance to the lab.   
  
“Would you kindly get this thing crafted already?” Atlas snapped down the radio. “Air’s only getting thinner down here.”  
  
Jack’s feet moved him quickly to the crafting station, using it to make the Lazarus vector as instructed.   
  
“By the sounds of that U-Invent, I’m guessing you’re the proud papa of a brand new Lazarus Vector. Now drop the Vector into a gadget called the Central Misting Control. Then we’ll be cooking with gas.”   
  
Jack located said device, quickly pushing the strange glowing concoction into the device. It glowed a bright green and soon the machine strange to life. Cracking and gurgling loudly. It filled the whole room with its noise making him wince and almost cover his ears.   
  
“Ah, listen to that damn thing gurgle and crank. How long is it going to take?”  
  
“It seems Julie’s death didn’t provide a clear enough lesson to you,” Ryan suddenly spoke up and Jack’s gaze fell on the body of the former botanist. “Perhaps this will suffice.”  
  
“Ryan’s got your number. No doubt he’ll be sending the company. Best to head back to the lab entrance and seal her up. Might be the only way to keep the splicers out.”  
  
Jack ran quickly hearing the sound of clattering, almost like something was climbing around in the walls. He ran to the door, flipping the switch and watching as the door shut. He briefly saw the wall of Houdini splicers but that was only for a moment. It was now or never. He was going to have to hold god knows how many splicers back while the vector worked.   
  
“Did you get that door closed? Good. That should buy some time,” Atlas said over the radio before continuing. “I’ve sent you a wee package through the pneumo. It’s not much, but ever little bit counts.”   
  
When Jack checked the pneumo he could’ve cried in relief. There were mines inside and an eve hypo. He quickly set the mines up at all possible entrances. Used one of the hypos so he was full of eve and then loaded his shotgun. He could hear the Houdini splicers outside screaming and yelling so presumably Ryan’s controlled splicers were trying to get in.   
  
He heard the sounds of something crawling through the walls again. Tensing up a moment and looking around with wide eyes for any sign of life and out of nowhere five splicers came running out of an area that shouldn’t of been accessible to them.  
  
“Oh christ. Here they come.”   
  
The young man was a little caught off guard, but found himself catching up with the situation. He dodged and ducked, used his shotgun and would alternate his plasmids. Electrobolt was the most useful since Rapture leaked so much there was water everywhere. Jack was certain he electrocuted more splicers than he did shoot them, but it got the job done and he didn’t hear any complaints from Atlas. Besides, he was conserving ammo, but he did find himself tearing through the eve hypos quickly. He might need to slow down on using the plasmids, but there was an addictive quality to them. Not the usual addicting this was just having the power to shoot fire or lightning out of your hands, that was addictive.  
  
“For christ’s sake, how long is that damn vector gonna take to cook?” Atlas complained down the radio and Jack had to agree with him. He wished the process of saving the trees would speed up. He wanted to get Ryan. He wanted to kill him, Jack had never felt a rage so powerful before, but there was just something about Ryan that pissed him off.   
  
He heard the sound of screams as well as the distinct sound to the mines going off. A few of the splicers had probably worked past the Houdini splicers, though Jack didn’t they’d all be dead. Those splicers were too tough for that.   
  
He ducked another explosion which sent a splicer’s body through the air. It splattered across the floor, blood pooling and a few of its limbs had been torn off.   
  
Jack gagged a little but focussed back on the current rake wielding enemy.   
  
“You’re about halfway there. Keep your hand on the throttle,” Atlas added helpfully. “Ryan’s skin jobs aren’t the type to get complacent.”   
  
Good it was almost over.   
  
He was tired, physically at least he wasn’t tired, but emotionally he was exhausted. Killing people, no matter how twisted they were, was a lot to take in. They’d probably been good people at some point. Innocent until Ryan and this Fontaine twisted their minds. What a waste. A resounding ding echoed around the room and Atlas’s voice came through the radio once again.   
  
“What was that? Is the vector ready? What are you waiting for? Hit the damn switch!”   
  
Jack raced up the steps to the control room, flicking the switch and a green gas began to fill Arcadia, the trees soon became green once more, flowers were blooming everywhere, it was beautiful, just like it had been before.   
  
Downstairs he heard the pleased cries of the Saturnine. Their home was restored so if the cult was happy, then Jack was sure he wouldn’t be bothered by them anymore.   
  
“Well cone, lad,” Atlas praised him over the radio sounding very pleased. “Take a deep breath and enjoy it, and then head over to Rolling Hills and get the bathysphere. Next stop is Ryan’s house. It’s time for blood.”  
  
Jack couldn’t agree more.   
  
He left the lab, gently closing Langford’s eyes on his way out, out of respect and maybe a hint of guilt. He felt like he could’ve saved her, if he’d only tried just a little bit harder. If he’d only hit that bit harder than before.   
  
The Saturnine thankfully didn’t pay him any attention as he left. They seemed happy to simply have their home back to how it was supposed to be. Lush and green, filled with all the beauty of the surface world.   
  
Jack walked through the Rapture metro and once again Ryan’s voice crackled over the radio. The constant reminder that he was being watched and there would be things put in place to stop him from reaching his destination.   
  
“Why are you so resistant to the traditional method of separating a man from his soul? You’re not CIA, are you… you belong to Atlas,” he snarled the name out. “The one roach I can’t seem to exterminate. Don’t worry. I just need time to find proper poison.”  
  
He grimaced a little. That sounded like a promise Ryan would be willing to keep. Jack wasn’t too sure he wanted to know what it meant. He found it fascinating how much hate Ryan had for Atlas and equally how much hate Atlas had for Ryan. The two couldn’t stand each other, he wondered what had happened to reach this point. Yes there was the fact Ryan had killed Atlas’s family, but even before then… there was just so much hate radiating off both men for each other. Also, was it just Jack or did Atlas seem to get over his family’s death pretty quickly? Almost too quickly for his liking, it just didn’t sit quite right, but maybe Atlas was just trying to keep himself brighter for Jack’s sake?   
  
“Next stop will be Fort Frolic,” Atlas explained sounding almost bored with Ryan. “I’ve got someone there waiting on ya’. Her name’s Lokken-.”   
  
“Emilie Lokken?”   
  
Atlas was quiet a moment before speaking again. Almost sounding cautious.   
  
“Aye. Though it’s pronounced Amelia. Not Emily. I know spelling wise, but she’s Norwegian, they pronounce it a bit differently. Still, ya’ can go about calling her Em or Ms Em. We all did,” he paused a moment before speaking once more. “She’s gonna help ya’ get past Ryan’s security… she built the damn thing after all. Just keep ya’ eyes peeled for an angry lookin’ red head with one eye. That’s her. Watch your tone with her too,” he warned. “Ms Em don’t take too kindly to being patronised and don’t underestimate her either. She can handle herself just fine in a fight. You won’t need to guard her.”  
  
He nodded and sat down in the sphere, pulling the lever and letting it sink to the icy waters. Jack couldn’t believe that he’d been able to fix the trees… and now he was going to be working with one of the people that helped keep Rapture running. He was a little nervous. Emilie Lokken sounded like a headstrong woman. Just by Atlas’s description and the few audio diaries he’d found from her. She didn’t take much nonsense from anyone.   
  
As the little sphere drifted through the water, Jack could watch the world for a moment. Even though he knew what the inside looked like, the outside of Rapture was still stunning. He couldn’t believe that he was dealing with a city under water. It sounded crazy. Something out of a science fiction novel.   
  
The little sphere eventually docked at a place called Fort Frolic and as the door opened, Jack’s radio once again crackled to life.   
  
“You’re almost there. The sphere to Ryan is on up ahead,” his friend explained, before continuing, deciding to fill the empty silence with some information. “Ryan’s handed the keys to Fort Frolic to a guy named Sander Cohen. Cohen’s an artist , says some. He’s a Section Eight, says I. I’ve seen all kinds of cutthroats, freaks, and hard cases in my life, but Cohen, he’s a real lunatic… _Rise Rapture Rise…_ a dyed in the wool psychopath… _we turn our hopes up to the skies… rise Rapture rise…_ ”   
  
Jack stared at his radio in confusion. The whole thing had cut out with some sort of music… was that Cohen? No it couldn’t be. No one was able to jam the transmission.   
  
As he continued to make his way, he stepped through the next door and into the next bathysphere station, and found the woman he was looking for sitting at a bench, eating a pep bar, with a dead splicer at her feet, almost using it as a footrest. She looked up at him and rose one eyebrow.   
  
“You? Really?” She looked a little doubtful. “Okay, kid… let’s see what you’re made of. You took your sweet time getting here.”  
  
Jack had been expecting many things but not a response like that.   
  
“I.. sorry?” He frowned a little. “Ryan killed Arcadia. I had to bring it back to life.”   
  
She didn’t even blink. “And were you sight seeing at the same time?”  
  
“No, I-.”  
  
“Forget it,” she waved him off getting back to her feet and walking towards the sphere. “Let’s just get this over with.”  
  
“I lost Atlas on the radio.”   
  
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” she mumbled. “Besides, not like he’d be able to help much. He never worked in Hephestus.”   
  
“I think he worked in the fisheries,” Jack spoke softly. He didn’t like remember that place. The submarine… the explosion.. “It’s where he hid his family.”   
  
“Family?”  
  
“His wife and son… Ryan killed them…”   
  
She opened her mouth to say something, but the bathysphere suddenly dropped down and a huge rabbit mask began to rise out of the water. Circque de sole dancers made out of plaster lowered from the ceiling, along with glitter and confetti. Spotlights lit them up, purple floor to ceiling curtains closed around all sides and plaster statues rose out of the water too.  
  
“Cohen…” Em groaned quietly to herself, pinching the bridge of her nose and muttering a few words in her own native tongue.   
  
“Ah, that’s better,” a new voice said over Jack’s radio. “Atlas, Ryan, Atlas Ryan, duh duh duh, duh duh duh. Time was you could get something decent on the radio. The artist has a duty to seduce the ear and delight the spirit, so say goodbye to those two blowhards, and hell to an evening with Sander Cohen!”   
  
Music was playing from the speakers, soft and gentle. It reminded Jack of dancers, like the plastered dancers rising and falling above them. Beside him, Em was fiddling with her own radio but it didn’t look like she was able to get anywhere either. She couldn’t get through to Atlas just like him.   
  
“Where in the hell… where did he learn to hack and jam transmission?!” She raged angrily. “Where did he find the time?!”  
  
“What should we do?” Jack asked.   
  
She looked up at him, glaring a little and Jack shrank back a bit.  
  
“We find the bastard, obviously,” she replied, attaching her radio to her hip. “Usually I’d humour him, but we’re running out of time and I do not have the patience today.”  
  
“You know Cohen?” Jack asked as he followed her. “Atlas said he’s insane.”   
  
“Yeah, Atlas says a lot of things,” She mumbled. “Look, kid. I knew a lot of people. Ryan, Fontaine, goddamn Sinclair and Cohen. I knew them. Look where we are,” she gestured around them. “You’d be hard pushed not to know everyone. It’s not like we could go anywhere and it’s not like we had anyone new join us. I’ve probably seen ever sorry sod around here, before and after splicing,” she pinched the bridge of her nose. “But Cohen is in a league all of his own. You think Steinman was dangerous? Think again.”   
  
“Steinman was a surgeon,” Jack pointed out as the door rose so they could head to Fort Frolic, leaving the bathysphere port behind them. “Cohen’s just an artist…” he trailed off when he saw the sight that lay before him.   
  
The whole area he’d just walked through was now littered with trap bolts. All of them sparking with electricity, stopping Jack and Em from going anywhere accept in one direction. They’d only been in that other room for a few minutes, how had Cohen set this up so quickly?   
  
“You were saying?” She rose an eyebrow at him, face still cold and emotionless. “Instead of making your own assumptions why don’t you actually listen to the person who’s had to survive down here for two years. How’s that for a plan?”   
  
“I was just trying to help..”   
  
“I don’t need help,” she bit out, arms firmly crossed in front of her. “Not let’s get going. The sooner we can entertain Cohen, the sooner we can move on.”   
  
They marched up to the doors, but Em paused when she heard the sound of ceiling tiles falling and quickly snatched up her rifle.  
  
“Now, I haven’t seen a sign of real life down here in months,” Cohen’s voice came over the intercom system, because of course he’d gained control of it. “Let’s see if you’re just another Jonny come lately, or maybe something more delicious.”   
  
“Spider splicers!” Em hissed and Jack spotted them.   
  
It was a male and female one, both coming towards them and crawling across the ceiling as they went, dislodging some the tiles with the hooks they used to scale the walls and ceilings.  
  
He was quick to shoot them down. Maybe he’d been so fast to try and impress Em. Get her to see that he wasn’t going to be a burden. He turned back to her almost looking for approval for her expression didn’t change. If anything, her eyes narrowed a little.   
  
“Nicely done,” Cohen chimed in. “Where did you study?”   
  
More tiles began to come down and there were more spider splicers dropping down from the ceiling along with the tiles. Presumably sent by Cohen.   
  
Jack killed them because he was forced to. He’d hesitated a little, but Em had just taken a few out quickly and with unnerving efficiency. Her movements were almost mechanical, like it was just second nature and she didn’t even need to think about it anymore. She didn’t even flinch when some of the blood splattered across her face. It speckled across her pale skin looking like red freckles for a moment.   
  
He secretly hoped that he’d never get to that point. When he never even registered that’s he’d killed someone.  
  
“Ohhhh, I can smell the malt vinegar in this one. I’ve waited so long for something tasty to come to this little burg, but all that pass are yokels and rubes,” Cohen said, sounding annoyed before his voice went back to what could be assumed an attempt at a friendly tone. “Where are my manners? Come in, come in! Sander Cohen awaits you, at the Fleet Hall!”   
  
The doors to Fort Frolic began to open and Em took a step forward, Jack following behind her quickly as she strides off.   
  
“Do you know where-?”  
  
“Yes.”   
  
“Right… good…”  
  
As they entered the main area of the place it was dark and then Jack hear the tell tale sounds of switches being flicked and lights began to come to life. He watched as the lights of Fort Frolic flickered on, suddenly lighting up and twinkled merrily, casting the illusion that everything was fine and working as it should be. The only thing that destroyed that illusion were the plaster cast statues that Jack could now see were people covered in plaster and they were very, very dead by now. Em didn’t seem bothered.   
  
“WELCOME!” Cohen cried proudly. “To Fort Frolic!”

* * *

  
So things had gone to shit quicker than he’d like. Why was it that every new area Jack entered a new problem was quick to follow? Was the little bastard just a bad penny or something? It was like Rapture itself was working against him.   
  
Fontaine glared at the screens he was facing, stewing in his own annoyance. Probably not healthy but he’d had it up to here with things going wrong. His temper was getting shorter and shorter by the minute and every time he tried to contact Jack or Em on the radio all he got was that stupid rise Rapture rise song playing back in response.   
  
Cohen. Fontaine loathed the psychotic loon.   
  
Frank knew that he had a few wires crossed upstairs, you didn’t kill as many people as he had and not feel any kind of remorse if everything was running smoothly and in the right place, but Cohen was another matter entirely.   
  
Ryan was nuts. Steinman was crazy, but Cohen was fucking off this world and on a different planet all together. Also from what he’d heard, anyone else trapped in that place was sent to whatever la la land Cohen resided in and became a permanent resident. In other words, Cohen drove them off the deep end and called it art.   
  
He meant what he’d said about Cohen.   
  
All those words he’d said to Jack were too real for his liking, but he needed to keep the kid away from that bastard. Obviously that hadn’t worked and the self proclaimed artist had decided to take matters into his own hands. He wanted Jack’s attention and by god was he going to get it, jamming Frank’s transmissions and doing whatever he wanted to Frank’s kid.  
  
Who did that psychotic little maniac think he was? Jack was Fontaine’s, he’d paid for him. He was his property! Cohen should keep his greasy hands off him.   
  
He tried to radio Jack again, but still got music and in a fit of rage he threw the radio across the room. He startled Clayton and boy stared at him in surprise as Frank cursed Sander Cohen using every word under the sun. He had a wide vocalbuary for insults and he wasn’t sure which ones he used, but he thinks he summed up his hatred for Cohen quite well.   
  
His other concern was Em. She better not get too comfortable thinking that he wouldn’t find out if she told Jack anything. If she did… well, things would not go well for her.   
  
Frank looked over at Clayton, who was staring at him cautiously. They hadn’t spoken to each other since the boy had given Frank the locket back. Such a simple thing and yet it tamed Fontaine in a matter of moments, made her calm down and revert much to how he had been with the kid. In the back of his mind he knew Clayton was probably only using it against him, but regardless, he had it back now. The only he thing he had left of that actress, of his mother and it was all because of the kid he saw as his own.  
  
Idly, Frank rolled the locket over in his hand and stared at the inscription on the back. A metaphor for hope. Not something he put much faith in now days, but the sentiment was there. Perhaps that was what Clayton was to him. A small glimmer of hope, a little piece of proof that Fontaine hadn’t completely gone off the deep end just yet. There was still time, like, but he didn’t think he’d be jumping head first quite yet.   
  
Glancing back at the screens and searching for any sign of the kid and Em, Frank mentally planned in the back of his head all the horrible little things he was going to do to Cohen once he was in control of Rapture. Yeah, that artist could smile and giggle and merrily murder away all he liked at the moment, soon, he’d wish he’d never interfered with Fontaine’s plans.

* * *

  
_Ada,_   
  
_Artist war:_   
  
_Damn it all! Never let a man do a woman’s job. That Cohen idiot has completely ruined my latest piece. I paint as well as act and when my latest piece was about to go on display… Cohen accidentally let it fall. That bastard! It took me weeks to finish this piece! Now look at it! Pieces! I.. do not like it when my muse is challenged and destroyed so heinously!_   
  
_Very well, Mister Cohen… you want an artist war… well you’ve got one!_


	11. All That Jazz

_Sander Cohen,_   
  
_A Musical Insult:_   
  
_Regarding your review of Anna Culpepper’s latest musical insult: Of all the worthy artists in Rapture, why you continue to devote column inches to this musical GREMLIN is beyond my imagination. Where she is not derivative, she’s boring. Where’s not boring, she’s obvious. Where she’s not obvious, she’s dangerous!_

* * *

  
“No need to thank me for jamming the transmission of those boors Atlas and Ryan. Let them have their squabble. The artist, yes, the artist knows there is richer earth to till.”   
  
Jack glanced at Em who was staring up at the many glowing signs with a look of exasperation and maybe just a hint of concern. She was holding her gun tightly, her knuckles were practically white, one eyes sharp and looking around in all directions. Of course to look to the right, she had to turn her head completely, she couldn’t just look. Either way, Jack knew the signs of hypervigelance when he saw them.   
  
“Are you okay?” He asked almost cautiously. He didn’t really want to set her off, her got the feeling that having Emilie Lokken mad at you was not something you wanted.   
  
She glanced at him and frowned. “I’m fine. Worry about yourself, kid.”  
  
“Jack.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“My name,” he clarified, shrugging a little. “It’s Jack. I know who you are, I heard some of your diaries…”   
  
“So you were sight seeing.”  
  
“That’s not what I-.”   
  
“For example,” Sander Cohen suddenly interrupted their bickering with his voice. “I test you, little moth, but for a radon. I test all my disciples. Some shine like galaxies, and some… some burn like a moth at the flame! Come now, into my home.”   
  
“Is he talking to me?” Jack whispered to her and she rolled her good eye.  
  
“Yes. He doesn’t call me, ‘little moth’, come on,” Em began marching off again and Jack was quick to follow. “He’s up here. Fleet Hall is at least. We have to play Cohen’s game or else we’re never getting out of here.”  
  
“Always straight to business with you, dear Valkyrie,” Cohen crooned over the radio. “Sadly, you shall not be joining our dear little moth in his quest… I have a different one set out for you.”  
  
“I’m not an artist, Sander.”  
  
“On the contry. I find you to be quite the imaginative sort. No, your little game is somewhere else… run along now… off you go to my old workshop. That place was too small and cramped for one such as me…”   
  
Em sighed and glanced to Jack who stared back at her like a dear in headlights. She shrugged a little before pointing in the direction of the Fleet Hall.  
  
“You better go. He won’t let us leave until we’ve played his game.”  
  
“Okay… you will be careful, won’t you?”  
  
She looked startled by the question but nodded her head wordlessly.   
  
They split off in different directions. Jack heading into the Fleet Hall and Em continuing through the rest of Fort Frolic.  
  
The bright glowing sign directed him to a glass door with a golden ‘R’ elegantly scrawled on the front of it. He stared at it for a moment, realising that this place had probably belonged to Ryan at some point. Before everything had gone to hell and this place had to be closed down. Just like the rest of Rapture, everything had to be shut off and locked away. Ryan had been boxing Atlas in, determined not to loose.   
  
Speaking of Atlas, Jack wondered if he was okay. He must be worried since he lost communication with Jack and after everything that happened with his family… the exploding submarine was still fresh in his mind and it made him wince. God if only he hadn’t of been slow. If he’d been just that bit quicker, everything would be-   
  
Jack stopped and stared at the poster that lay before him. It was in black and white, showing a man and a woman dancing elegantly. It was a play written by Sander Cohen, but that wasn’t why he stopped. It was the name of the play that gave him pause.  
  
“Patrick and Moira…” he mumbled to himself, staring at the black and white poster in confusion.   
  
That had to be a coincidence, right? Why was this here? Atlas’s wife and child had been called Moira and Patrick and here was a poster advertising something with the same name. It was a little convenient wasn’t it? Were they a lie? Did Atlas fabricate a family, but why? It didn’t make any sense and it wasn’t like he could question the man himself, Jack had no way of communicating with Atlas now that Cohen had cut off all transmissions.   
  
He shook his head to rid himself of these thoughts. That wasn’t important right now. He needed to keep going, he needed to get out of this place, back to the surface where things made a hell of a lot more sense.   
  
Besides, Atlas wouldn’t lie to him. He knew it sounded crazy, after all he’d only just met the man, but he knew that he could trust him. It was just this indescribable feeling he got. He knew that he could trust Atlas and that Atlas would never lie to him.   
  
With his mind made up, Jack continued on his way, walking up to the glass door which slid up into the ceiling and let him through.   
  
As Jack entered the building, he found himself in one of the most beautiful places of Rapture he’d seen. It was mostly wooden panelling with decorative artists flairs. Posters lined the walls advertising new plays or dance resightles, even a few movies were advertised around this theatre.   
  
He walked through to the back of the room, but the second glass door wouldn’t rise. It looked like it was locked.   
  
Jack looked around for a moment before he saw an elevator and took it up to the top floor. He could hear the sound of a piano being played and being played very well. There were complicated scales and cords moulded into one tune and then it was rudely interrupted by Sander Cohen yelling angrily at whoever was playing the piano.  
  
“No, no, no!”  
  
“I’m trying!” A young and terrified voice called back. “Please!”  
  
“Once again, young Fitzpatrick.”   
  
Jack entered into the main hall. Chairs were scattered around and at the bottom of the theatre was a piano, lit up with purple and white lights, casting strange shadows of women dancing on the curtains. As he got closer he realised that attached to the piano were sticks of dynamite or some sort of explosive and the man at the piano was stuck. He was plastered from the waist down to the seat, playing the piano under Sander Cohen’s strict instructions, but once again he had played wrong or at least he had to Cohen.   
  
“No, no no!”   
  
“Oh god, you sick fuck, let me outta here!” The man yelled, struggling against the piano and it suddenly blew up, throwing his body across the stage.  
  
Jack was immediately hit with the images of the submarine, the charred and burnt bodies of Patrick and Moria. Innocent lives stolen by one man’s cruel and simple act. The whole area shook with the explosion of the piano and Jack covered his nose to cut out the smell of burning flesh. It felt like it would stick to his clothing.   
  
“Come down now, little moth,” Cohen crooned from somewhere above him. “Life… death… the burden of the artists is to capture!” The artist sounded far to thrilled and enraptured by the concept of life and death. “See young Fitzpatrick here on the stage. Use your camera. Take him as he is now, so I may remember him.”   
  
He wanted Jack to do what? He felt like he was reeling from the very idea, take a photo of a dead body for someone’s grotesque amusement? Oh Jesus Christ, he was starting to sound like Ryan.   
  
Even as he thought these words, he found himself moving to the body and reaching for the camera he’d kept at his hip. He couldn’t he was going to be wasting film on this, but Em had been right. They needed to keep moving, no way Jack would be able to batter the door down of this place and even if he could, they still need a bathysphere. Cohen wasn’t going to let them leave until he was ready to and god knows how long that was gonna take.   
  
He walked up to Fitzpatrick’s body, staring at the bloody, charred remains. The smell of the burning flesh hitting him full in the face. He could also smell that coppery and sweet smell of blood and ADAM.   
  
Grimacing, Jack raised his camera and took a photo of the remains, his movements almost robotic. It was better to just move along and perform these acts then really think about them. Better to ignore the silent and dead remains plastered forever in a mockery of life.   
  
“And now you’ve got Fitzpatrick caught in his moment of glory. It seems you’ve got the eye of the shutterbug, little moth! Now head to the atrium and place his photograph in my masterpiece. And so our collaboration commences.”   
  
Jack didn’t like the sound of that. Why did he have to stop off in this place? Why couldn’t he just continue the way he was going, he wanted to leave this place, he didn’t want to spend one more moment in Rapture. Yet, there was a part of him that very much wanted to stay. That felt at peace here, like this was where he belonged and where he’d always belonged. This was home. This was always home and he shouldn’t want to leave it, he should want to stay.   
  
These two conflicting thoughts had battered around in his skull since arriving. Everything had felt so foreign and so familiar at the same time. He didn’t want to leave, he loved this place and he hated it, never wanting to see it ever again.There was also the weird moments when he’d end up knowing exactly where to go. Even here, though he’d asked Em for directions, he’d secretly already knew where he was supposed to go. Instantly the direction was clear to him and his feet were carrying him in the direction long before Em pointed it out to him.   
  
Being in Rapture felt almost like coming home. Killing people, whilst awful, Jack had found he was uncomfortably good at it. Like he was made to be this.. unstoppable force that would just keep moving. He’d never been a violent man on the surface, he hated confrontation, would often find himself trying to hide away when people started shouting, very much like a toddler. He’d scold himself every time he did it, but it was instinctual. He didn’t like shouting. Jack wouldn’t be able to tell you why he didn’t like shouting, but whenever he thought about it, it always felt like it was a bad memory, but he couldn’t remember his parents ever having an argument. They were always so happy, their life was perfect and they’d always be smiling. There was never a bad word said between them.   
  
It all felt so… unrealistic. Maybe he was just remembering the good things while he dealt with… this. Whatever this was, Jack wasn’t too sure. It felt like a fantasy. A dark and twisted fantasy and yet at the same time… it felt like the most real thing Jack had ever experienced in his life. Rapture, felt like the most real thing he’d ever seen despite its unrealistic qualities.   
  
A city at the bottom of the ocean… ridiculous…   
  
As Jack left the theatre his radio flickered to life once again. No Atlas, just Cohen as usual. He was starting to come to terms with the fact he wouldn’t be hearing Atlas for a while now. Not until he’d completed everything Cohen has asked him to.   
  
“I know why you’ve come, little moth. You’ve your own canvas. One you’ll paint with the blood of a man I once loved,” Cohen sighed a little, before speaking once again. “Yes, I’ll send you to Ryan. But first you must be part of my masterpiece. Go to the atrium. Hurry now!” Sander snarled down the radio, sounding about two seconds away from a tantrum. “My muse is a fickle bitch with a very short attention span!”   
  
The young man’s pace picked up a little bit and he quickly darted down the steps into the main atrium, only to see that the stage centred in the middle of the room was finally revealed to him. There were a group of plastered up figures standing around in weird positions holding picture frames in their hands. Blood was dried around their necks and wrists, Jack tried desperately to ignore it. It was easier to look at these things as… well, statutes not the actual things they were. People.   
  
“Do you see it?” Cohen purred “When I am dust, this is what they’ll point to! My Quadtych! My masterpiece….” He was silent but Cohen was not a man that was silent for long because he all but whispered to Jack. “Go ahead. Don’t be afraid. Touch it.”   
  
He really didn’t want to. He just wanted to put the photograph in the frame and be done with all of this. He would agree with one thing, people would stop and point at this. Probably say something along the lines of my god that man was absolutely off his fucking mind. What the hell was wrong with him?   
  
Questions that would probably not be answered and you probably didn’t want to know the answer to.   
  
Jack pressed the image to one of the frames, which was already prepared for him so the image would stay. He took a few steps away from it, staring at the image of a dead man and trying desperately to work out how Cohen could see this as art.   
  
“Yes… and there’s Fitzpatrick, freed of his own kinks and defects,” Cohen praised and yes Jack supposed he was right. Deeth tended to do that to a person. “And here’s the glorious news: this is just the moment of conception!” The artist cried, sounding decidedly excited. “Out in this place there are three men, all former disciples of mine, all connected by a common thread… betrayal. Find them, little moth, and immortalise their mortality in my Quadtych. Go. Once they’ve been sent to their reward, you shall to yours… and to Ryan.”   
  
Reward? As far as Jack was aware, rewards were something that you could enjoy. He didn’t think for a moment that these men would enjoy being killed. Jack didn’t think he was going to enjoy killing Ryan either. It was just something he had to do so he could leave this insane freak show.   
  
“The door to Poseidon Plaza is now open for you, my moth.”   
  
He supposed that’s where he was heading to next. Once again his feet began to take him before he consciously thought about moving, but at the sound of a trumpet he stopped to see another plaster figure rising out of the stage holding a crossbow.   
  
Was that for him? A… reward or a tool to help him deal with Cohen’s disciples…   
  
Shrugging he picked it up and held it in his hands. It already had a small collection of bolts with it, that was something at least.  
  
Jack’s feet were moving again, he let them take him where he needed to go, killing off a few splicers he encountered on the way, with his shotgun. He was saving the crossbow for later, to use against the men he was being sent after.   
  
There was ice hanging off the sign to Poseidon Plaza. The pink glowing neon flickered and twinkled, making the ice shine in the same colour. It was almost beautiful.   
  
“Allow me to draw back the curtain…”   
  
The door slowly rose up to allow Jack entrance into the Poseidon Plaza, but all that he was meant with was ice. The cold air blew into his face and the whole floors were covered in ice. A body was hanging from the ceiling looking like some sort of ice angel… with icicles for wings.   
  
“You’ll find Finnegan in cold storage,” Cohen informed him. “I discovered him in Marseilles in 1937. He admired my painting, I admired his… carriage. He was the first of my disciples to bite the hand. Kill him any way you fancy,” he said before sounding a little too gleeful in the next instant as he said. “But I’d prefer it if you could involve burning in some fashion.”   
  
Being in the ice reminded Jack of the fisheries. How cold and dead it felt, despite the fact it was a place designed to keep food fresh. All those people he’d killed because of one man’s delusions. They thought he was here for Fontaine, working for him, but from what Jack could tell of the story of Rapture… Fontaine was dead. Had been very dead for a very long time.   
  
_“Fontaine’s dead and everybody knows it. In the ground for months and half the place still jumping at his shadow, christ even Ryan.”_   
  
Atlas’s words from before echoed around his head. Fontaine was dead. Very dead, so how the hell did they think he was here doing his bidding.  
  
 _“When your boss waggled up from hell he done told the devil he’d be right back…”_  
  
 _“Whatever you think Ryan can do to me, Fontaine can do double!”_  
  
 _“This Fontaine fellow is someone to watch…”_  
  
 _“You’ll never believe who I got a job from today, Frank Fontaine of all people.”_  
  
 _“But this leader of theirs… this Fontaine. He knows his way around a grift.”_  
  
 _“Fontaine’s putting the screws on us.”_  
  
 _“Something must be done about Fontaine.”_  
  
 _“He reminds me of the germans… so officiate, it wouldn’t surprise me if he was soon running things down here.”_  
  
 _“And the devil said sure thing Mister Fontaine, I’ll hold your spot.”_  
  
 _“… Half the place still jumping at his shadow…”_   
  
Who the hell was that guy? How were so many people… so scared of him? As far as Jack was aware, Ryan was the worst person in Rapture, but maybe that was simply by process of elimination.   
  
Sucking in a breath he entered the ice tunnel, trying desperately to shake of the ghosts that seemed to follow him. Running through his blood after taking all that ADAM and he was still taking the ADAM. Even now.   
  
The floor crunched under foot and he found it difficult to stay upright. Slipping every now and again, but for the most part he was able to keep himself steady. There was an audio diary stuck to wall and Jack pressed play on it out of curiosity.  
  
 _“You think you gonna finish me in here, you old fruit?”_ A gruff voice growled down the radio. _“The other saps you tossed in this meat locker all panicked like rabbits. I just watched and waited. And when they started to kick, I started to scavenge. Made myself a little Splicer cocktail, I did. If you can’t come in from the cold, then you gotta grow ice over your heart. And the iceman cometh, Sander baby. The iceman fucking cometh.”_   
  
Jack swallowed uneasily, letting out a big puff of air, which he was able to see float up into the frigid air that surrounded him.   
  
“I can see your breath…”   
  
He almost jumped out of his skin at the voice. It was the same voice from the recordings. One Martin Finnegan or the iceman as he seemed to of called himself now days.   
  
As Jack entered the main hall there were people scattered around and frozen in place, in various of posses and positions. Like Cohen’s twisted sculptures outside, but what was worse with these, despite the ice, he could still see that these were people. They’d been living breathing people, with dreams and hopes. Now they were just an added collection of dead bodies at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.   
  
Jack looked around the room, trying to find any sign of Finnegan, but all he saw was bodies and ice. The he felt cold suddenly running up his legs and he couldn’t move. Staring down in horror he watched as ice began to form up his legs and over the rest os his body, it even coated his hands and he stared at them, going blue and black and then finally covered in ice. He took one final gasp of air as the ice covered his head, but he could still see. He was still alive and watched as a man walked in front of him. If you could even call this thing a man anymore.   
  
“Guess the old fruit finally sent someone,” Finnegan growled. “Son of a bitch, left me to freeze…” he looked Jack over before nodding his head. “Oh… I’ve got a pose all picked out for you….”

* * *

  
Em should have known that anything to do with Cohen was sketchy at best and damn right suicidal at worst. This was somewhere in the middle. She wouldn’t say that she couldn’t handle it, but dear god this was nothing but a waste of bullets.   
  
She ducked once more as another fireball was thrown in her direction, she could hear what had once been Ada cackling madly and yelling at her. In all honesty Em was surprised that Ada was still alive. Hell, she was surprised she was even still in Fort Frolic, given Cohen’s nature, she though that he’d of kicked her out or killed her himself. Instead, no, he had set her the task of eliminating the woman.   
  
Ada had never been one of Em’s favourite people. She only met her a handful of times, but there was just something off about her. She wasn’t right in the head. Like all artist types as far as Em was concerned. You had to be a special sort of crazy to come up with some of the things these guys painted and Ryan’s rule of no sensor gave them the perfect outlet. Maybe that was why the art got weirder, because they were allowed to do it. There was no one to hold them back or say, hey you know electrocuting someone because they can’t follow your insane steps is just a little insane. Nope, no one was there to do it. You usually got hit with words like ‘you just don’t understand’ or ‘you’re so small minded, this is art’, it really wasn’t, but those artsy types weren’t going to listen to you. In the end, however, artists were the greatest conmen out there. Screw Fontaine, he had nothing on some of the so called ‘greats’. You painted a picture and gave it a complicated meaning people would instantly buy it.   
  
She idly recalled a time when a man had been gushing about this artists drawings and of landscapes and showed them all a pieces that were part of his ‘bird collection’ with little flying ‘V’s in the sky. The guy had made it out like there was some deep meaning or call to freedom, that was what the birds represented, but when she asked the actual artist, he simply told her that pictures with animals in them were selling better and since he could only draw birds… he went with birds.   
  
Art was the biggest grift out there, if you knew how to work the people. You could make them spend millions on nothing with just a few well placed words and a clever turn of phrase. In the end all people were paying for was a signature. That was usually the most complicated thing on a page.   
  
“Did that bastard send you?!” Ada yelled throwing another fire ball at Em and she ducked, gritting her teeth. “He’s just jealous!”   
  
“Of what, exactly, Ada?” She rose an eyebrow as she looked over the counter at the mess of a woman. “You’re both as crazy as each other.”   
  
“How dare you! Compared to that maniac I am an artist!”   
  
Em rolled her eyes. She’d heard all of this before. Every artist in Rapture did it, for some bizarre reason they held Cohen up as the one they had to beat, forgetting that they… sort of beat him anyway. The man was a deranged lunatic with a love of the macabre. Just look at his friendship with Steinman, like that wasn’t a match made in hell. He’d be very disappointed from what Em could gather, Jack had killed Steinman.   
  
Jack… hm. Just thinking of the kid rose questions up in her mind. Like, how the hell had he made it this far without being dead instantly? He was from the surface, he didn’t know Rapture, he wasn’t from Rapture and yet… he was surviving. He was alive and working his way through to killing Ryan. What was Fontaine doing? What game was he playing this time, who was this kid? She’d ask, but she doubted she’d get a straight answer. Frank had always been so very good at spinning his own variation of a pretty verse and a clever turn of phrase. He even had his own flare. Ever the showman.   
  
“Artists, paint!” Em snarled quickly firing a few shots at Ada. “They don’t kill people.”  
  
“Neither do engineers…” Ada replied, smiling at her, all crooked teeth and bleeding gums.   
  
Mentioning her past life was not a wise move. That was a touchy subject and all it did was remind Em of all the people she’d lost. All of her friends, her family, so many dead and yet she was still alive. Sometimes that was worse. You had to live while everyone else died in front of you, that was not something she’d wish on anyone.   
  
Em would say that surviving was sometimes worse than dying.

* * *

  
_Silas Cobb,_   
  
_Come to the Record Store:_   
  
_You wanna lock us in, old man? Oh that’s fine with Cobbsie. I used to love you. I used to think you were a musical genius. You know why? Because you paid my rent, you ancient hack! Come on to the record store, I’ll show you what I think of your plinkity, plink, plink!_


	12. Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me

_Sander Cohen,_   
  
_The Wild Bunny:_   
  
_The Wild Bunny by Sander Cohen: I want to take the ears off, but I can’t. I hop, and when I hop, I never get off the ground. It’s my curse, my eternal curse! I want to take the ears off but I can’t! It’s my curse! It’s my fucking curse! I want to take the ears off! Please! Take them off! Please!_

* * *

  
With a shaking gasp Jack unfroze himself, somehow. He wasn’t sure how, maybe it was the incinerate running through his veins. Maybe it wasn’t him at all… maybe it was the splicer, whatever was left of Martin Finnegan.   
  
Shivering from the cold, Jack slowly made his away around the frozen tunnel, switching to incinerate. Not because Cohen had advised him to do so, or more wanted him to because Finnegan had taken up the role of iceman, but more because fire beat ice. He had a feeling that Finnegan wasn’t going to go down easily. Especially if he could teleport like those other splicers.   
  
He picked his way through the iced statues that had once been living, breathing people, before noticing one that had a bird mask. Didn’t Finnegan have a bird mask too? Wasn’t it too much of a stretch to think that the man maybe could freeze himself and live? He was playing a cat and mouse game with Jack, that’s all this was. The man believed that he had the upper hand.   
  
With a quick snap of his fingers, Jack set the bird mask ice sculpture on fire. Lucky break, it was Finnegan.   
  
The old former artist screamed in pain, before teleporting in a blue mist and Jack tracked it, chasing it down. There quickly became a fight of fire and ice, being thrown in every directions. Several statues were hit and shattered into tiny little pieces. Some only lost arms or legs, a few lost their heads. Jack had several icicles frown at him, a few piercing his arm and shoulder. Others couldn’t get through the thick jumper and instead caused little frosty patches to form.   
  
After a few long and terrifying minutes of battle of the elements, Finnegan finally fell to the floor. His body was a charred mess, completely black and the smell stung Jack’s nose. The smoke also stung his eyes making them water a little and he hastily wiped them away. “

That was bracing,” Cohen chimed suddenly. “Take a photo of him and place it in the Quadtych. I’m feeling full, like an expectant momma!”   
  
Jack shudder a little, completely disturbed by the man’s antics and took a photo as quick as he could. He didn’t want to stayy in this crazy loopy land that was Sander Cohen’s little slice of heaven any longer than he had. He doubted Em would want to either. As he Made his way back quickly, he wondered how she was doing. Worried for her safety, but Atlas had said that Em was tougher than she looked. That she knew what she was doing and could wipe the floor with basically anyone. Still, how did she fit in to this story?   
  
Everything that was going on, it was all between Ryan and Atlas, everyone else just got in the way. They were a distraction to the two main players of this place. Before Atlas it had been Fontaine. Em had worked for Fontaine, maybe after the man died she found herself working for or more likely with Atlas. Jack doubted that Ryan would hire her, but then she’d built Ryan’s gate so… presumably she must of worked for the man at some point.   
  
Wow. Em worked or had worked for both Ryan and Fontaine, then she went along and started working for Atlas. She’d flittered about quite a bit. Back and forth between these men, almost like she was a toy that they couldn’t agree to share. Jack felt like all the people of Rapture were just toys to Ryan. Things he could possibly break and put back together how he wanted to.  
  
Didn’t explain just how the hell Em was still alive. She must of been hiding with Atlas? That made sense… or maybe even Tenenbaum. That woman had managed to live past the war and was now looking after the children. The ones she’d harmed and turned into monsters. Well, science experiments, they weren’t monsters. They were still children, little girls who got scared when you approached them, fearing you’d kill them and rip out their ADAM. Jack couldn’t imagine doing such a thing, you had to be a monster to do that to a child.   
  
You’d have to be a monster to make those children into the Little Sisters in the first place. Just what were they hoping to achieve here? What did they think they could do? That they’d just turn these children and make millions? That there’d be no… well, there hadn’t been had there? No one had tried to stop them, no one had protested it. Ryan had advertised the girls, used them as marketing, Jack had even heard a few of those advertisements over the PA system of Rapture. It made him sick every time had to listen to it.   
  
How could human beings be so cruel? How could they justify in their heads these horrendous actions or maybe and he found this more likely, they just didn’t care. About anyone. Just themselves. Maybe these people didn’t see everyone else as people, just experiments. Another line of test subjects so they could make and sell a new product.   
  
Ryan may have wanted to gather the best and brightest for his beloved city, but as far as Jack was concerned he’d only managed to gather the depraved and the grotesque. The Big Daddies held more compassion in them than the people did. They cared for the children, felt love and protection for the little girls and Jack honestly felt bad when he killed them. He was probably putting them out of their misery though, those diving suits didn’t look comfortable at all. They were probably in a great deal or pain, just what were they, anyway? People? Was there a person in that suit? At times when he killed them, they’d bleed glowing red ADAM, so there must be a person in that suit… didn’t that just make everything worse.   
  
What had happened here? From the outside, even now, Rapture looked so promising. It looked like an underwater utopia, the very thing it was sold to be, but the moment you came inside the horrors were revealed to you.   
  
Once he got out of this place he’d never go back. Let Rapture sink. Let it rot in its decay, let it be forgotten by everyone and slowly fade away. It didn’t deserve to live, it deserved to become nothing but a distant memory. A bad dream. Only the children, Em, Tenenbaum and Atlas were worth saving down here. Everything else should be left to decay into dust.   
  
Jack entered the Atrium, watching a Big Daddy fight off a horde of splicers, its Little Sister screaming and yelling in fear, hiding behind her protector.   
  
He turned his gaze away from the fight and instead placed the picture in the frame, his radio crackled to life just like he expected it would.   
  
“Yes, now put the picture in the frame! Let’s see what we’ve got here,” Jack took a step back so Cohen could see, wherever he was hiding. He decided that he didn’t want to know. Then the radio crackled to life again. “It’s coming together… yes… but there will always be doubters,” he paused before speaking again. “You don’t doubt me, do you? I could never stomach doubters.”   
  
Jack found himself shaking his head and running over to the Big Daddy fight. Most of the splicers were dead, the Big Daddy’s suit was steaming and sounded like the pressure was building up in its tanks. Many of the tanks were whistling like an over done tea kettle. It looked like the poor thing wouldn’t last long after this and then god only knows what would happen to the little sister. He decided he’d put the massive beast out of its misery. Make it quick and the Big Daddy wouldn’t even realise what had hit him. That was the only option he had.   
  
Carefully loading his shotgun, he cocked it and fired. The battle that went on afterwards was more difficult than what he’d originally planned. It seemed like the Big Daddy had more fight in him yet. More than what Jack had anticipated and he found himself slammed into a wall more than once. Then it suddenly became increasingly hard to breath and his chest hurt. He grabbed at it, trying to suck in at least one decent breath, as he struggled to his feet.   
  
The Big Daddy roared in anger and slammed it’s boot into the ground, causing the whole place to shake like they were in an earthquake. Jack thought he’d have better chance dealing with the earthquake than this reject of science.   
  
Managing somehow to dodge the creature as it charged him, the littler sister riding safely on top, he fired a few more rounds with his shotgun. Finally topling the beast and it fell to the floor, the little sister fell off it’s back and rolled across the floor. No sooner had she hit the ground than she was running over to her now dead protector, sobbing into her hands.   
  
“What’s wrong with you, Mister B?”   
  
Jack winced at the child’s cries, walking cautiously over to her, cooing softly and trying to give her some form of comfort. It was hard, when his ribs and lungs were screaming at him. Something wasn’t right and he’d need to sort it out, but right now his only concern was the little girl.   
  
As he drew out her ADAM with the Plasmid Tenenbaum had given him, he idly wondered what Em was doing and how she was coping with her task. Whatever that was. He hadn’t seen her and Cohen wasn’t much about giving things away. He supposed he’d find out when they met up again, if she’d tell him. She seemed to be the private type. Not so forthcoming with her information, he doubted that she’d tell him, but he could always hope.

* * *

  
Em had never been a fan of Ada or Ava for that matter. Scratch that, she’d never been a fan of any of the so called artists of Rapture. Always pushing for more and more daring forms of ‘Art’ no matter how it affected the rest of them. Some would even call death a form of art. She recalled the many times Cohen had tried to get her to his club, but she’d always politely declined, because no way in hell was she taking part in that psychos art. She only ever did it once, but that was mostly because her son was with her and she was terrified of what Cohen would do.   
  
Now, Cohen was certainly the worst of the artists of Rapture, but Ada had never been that far behind him on the insanity scale. Idiots seemed to think that because she was a woman she was just eccentric. She wasn’t. She was a psychopath who wrapped it up in a pretty tune and carefully painted image of death and macabre fantasies. It seemed that in Ryan’s haste to collect the best and brightest, he’d neglected to check for those of the most sound of mind. Then again, looking at how Ryan was, she doubted he cared. He probably saw it as an artistic expression.   
  
Ada was yelling and screaming, Em was firing bullet after bullet, thinking many a creative curse as she went. Why didn’t these crazy bitches just curl up and die already? Was Rapture so intent on keeping its horror stories alive it forget that death was thing. These people, who hardly resembled people, had always been hard to get rid of. Almost like a bad penny you just couldn’t shake from your pocket. She hated it.   
  
Individuality, expression, intelligence and choice. Those were the things held in the highest regard in Rapture, at the very beginning and even now as the shell of the city clung to life. The ability to choose, the intelligence of being able to survive. It was madness, to think that when she was younger she believed that these were all good qualities. That everything Rapture had stood for and still did stand for was fantastic. How wrong she had been. How misguided and unrealistic. She’d forgotten one important thing and that was yes, being an individual was great, but no one questioned what kind of individual was being brought down to this place.   
  
As she dodged another fire ball and short at Ada again, this time finally hitting her arm and giving herself time to run out and find somewhere else in Fort Frolic to station herself, she couldn’t help but think of the monsters that lived in this city. That were still breathing. Ryan, Fontaine, Cohen… Lamb was probably still somewhere… the bitch. The monsters remained, the good people were dead, destroyed by the monsters. Survival of the fittest, wasn’t that what they said? No, in Rapture it felt more like survival of the cruelest.   
  
She skidded to a holt and hid behind a little alcove while Ada yelled and screamed about how she was going to kill her and paint her corpse or use her blood for some piece of art. She didn’t know, she wasn’t wholly listening. That was the thing about these artistic types, they did tend to go on a bit. Go on and on and on. Always using big, fancy words and yet Em had a feeling they didn’t really know what any of it meant. They just sprouted words they thought sounded good and hoped no one else would know they were wrong.   
  
“When I find you… I’m going to turn you into one of greatest master pieces! I’ll outshine, Cohen and then Ryan will finally see who’s the greater artist! He’ll see the artist Rapture truly deserves!”   
  
She couldn’t agree more. Between Ada and Cohen it was a tough pick. Which one of these maniac artists was truly the greatest for Rapture, the one the city deserved? Well, in her humble opinion it was Sander. He fit right in this new world of horrors, better than Ada.  
  
“You’re trying too hard!” Em yelled back loading her rifle and standing up, taking a glance around the alcove. “Not that it matters. The only thing that’s gonna happen to you Ada, is the same thing that happens to everyone down here…” she shifted her grip on her rival and grit her teeth. “You’re going to die and rot just like everyone else.”   
  
Taking her chance she shot out form the alcove, tossing a mine towards Ada before taking aim with her rifle. The former artist looked shocked at the sight of the mine being thrown at them, even more shocked when Em shot her rifle and struck the mine. The explosion sent Ada flying backwards, Em also was tossed back and skidded across the floor.  
  
As she slowly began to push herself back to her feet, she could hear screaming and looked up to find Ada flailing about with her arms in the air, flesh burning and scorching and her clothes began to disintegrate as the fire chased an ate them.   
  
Em winced and reached hand up to cover her nose. The smell of burning flesh was still a smell she couldn’t stand, it would bring back too many memories, she’d feel the skin on her arm begin to burn all over again.   
  
Ada was stumbling around and flailing, screaming as the flames engulfed her body and began to race across her skin, turning it red, then making it take on a black charred hue. Her hair or what was left of her hair fell out or burnt up, she ran away from Em quickly, racing down the steps into the Atrium. Jack was staring at her with a look of horror, before looking up at Em who knew what her own face looked like. It was one of contempt. Maybe she should be worried about that, but… she couldn’t afford to her. Her son was in danger.  
  
“Have you gotten your challenge done yet?” She asked as way of greeting, wandering down and meeting Jack, Ada had ran out of Fort Frolic by this point. Em wasn’t entirely sure where she planned on going, but she didn’t care. She’d played Sander’s game, she wanted to move on.   
  
Jack stared at her, blinking with wide eyes and looking so very young. Hell, Clayton, her own son, looked older than Jack did.   
  
“I.. no, I’ve still got two more to find.”  
  
“Better get on with it then,” she mumbled, checking her rifle over. “I’ll look around. Try and find some supplies. That fight with Ada used a lot of my ammunition.”  
  
“You knew her?”   
  
“I didn’t _know_ her exactly… but yes, I knew Ada,” she nodded glancing at the horror stricken look on Jack’s face. “What? You think that’s the first person I’ve had to kill that I knew? I’ve had to do it to many others. Be grateful you don’t have the emotional baggage.”   
  
Jack nodded his head briefly, shouldering his shotgun as he looked over his crossbow. “Well, I’ll get on with this then… Jesus Christ I can’t believe…”   
  
“Hector might be in Eve’s Garden,” Em said. “From what I remember, he was a bit of regular and a bit of a drinker. Don’t think I ever saw him sober.”  
  
“Okay…” he whispered taking a few steps away from her and she did feel a little sorry for him.  
  
It wasn’t Jack’s fault she was like this. She was worried and terrified for her son. If anything happened to him, she didn’t know what she’d do. Cohen’s little side quest was wasting valuable time. Ryan was still breathing and Fontaine was never what she’d call a patient man, but then again, maybe he was. Maybe he always had been. He’d waited this out for twelve years, the moment Rapture would be in arms reach, it was almost a breath away from being his.   
  
Em didn’t know why he still wanted it. What was there even left to salvage from this place? The ADAM? He couldn’t be thinking about taking that to the surface, could he? Hadn’t he learnt his lesson with everything that had happened down here? It was wouldn’t work, on the surface she felt like it would be worse, at least here it was contained. Not good for anyone living here that hadn’t spliced up to kingdom come, but it at least meant the rest of the world would be safe.   
  
She watched Jack leave, turning on her heel herself to explore more of Fort Frolic, finding her feet taking her to the back. There was an audio diary sitting next to a burning Cohen poster. She didn’t know why, but she picked it up and listened to it, instantly recognising Cobb’s voice that came filtering through. He was hiding out in the record store huh? Well, when Jack came back she’d tell him so they could get this over with. She didn’t want to stay here any longer than she already had.   
  
Her feet had carried her to the bar she’d once frequented. It felt like that had been years. This was the place her friends and her had gone to celebrate New Years, the same evening LaLorna had become a firework herself. Now here she was and the place was a mess. A dead body lay on the floor, broken glass was littered everywhere, the chairs had been roughly shoved to the side, but in all this carnage the jukebox still played. Softly the tune ‘Beyond the sea’, filtered through its speakers and filled the heavy air. It sounded so carefree, so… melodic and beautiful. Peaceful, if she was going to name it directly, something she’d never think was possible to achieve in Rapture anymore.   
  
If she closed her eyes maybe she could hear her friends again. The sound of excited chatter and laughter, people dancing and clinking of glasses. Kelly would be flirting with the boys, Daniel and Opal would be making lovey dovey eyes at each other, her sister Rosa would be babbling about how wonderful Steinman was. Then Diane would but in with her moaning of Ryan, of which Cameal and Sarah would excuse themselves to the dance floor to get away from it, then O’Riley would find Kelly and they’d flirt endlessly through the night. Pablo would flirt with anything that moved and not get anywhere and Kyburz would sit quietly, smiling and occasionally whisper to her, before telling Pablo off for being vulgar.  
  
“It’s a shame, isn’t it?” Cohen said behind her, walking over the broken glass. “How so much can become so ruined. Beautiful almost in it’s destruction, do you not agree, dear Valkyrie?”  
  
“No,” she mumbled. “No, I don’t. I’ve lost so much…” Em glared at him. “I didn’t deserve to loose this much. What did I do?”  
  
“What the rest of us did,” Cohen replied simply. “Nothing.”

* * *

  
Jack made his way to the back of Poseidon Plaza, there sat Eve’s Garden. The glowing apple almost calling to him as he walked towards it, but he couldn’t shake this feeling of dread. Like there was something in this place he wasn’t meant to see. It was probably what made him hesitate when he reached the door, but like always the door slid open and for a moment he almost thought that there was a dancer on the stage, but it was just another ghost.   
  
As he stepped inside, the dancer on the stage suddenly stopped her routine and it almost felt like she was looking at him, like he was the person she’d been waiting for all this time.   
  
_“Well if it isn’t the long lost Andrew Ryan… hmm, come here tiger…”_   
  
Jack almost shivered, but he followed her, not entirely sure why, but he felt like he had to. There was almost this invisible string pulling him, forcing him to follow her through to the back. She appeared again, leaning on the wall and smiled at him, resting her hand on her hip.  
  
 _“I thought you’d forgotten about poor Jasmine… I’m so glad you didn’t…”_   
  
He felt like she was going to regret those words. This.. felt wrong, something wasn’t right… he just couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right, something was going to go wrong. It was all wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong-   
  
_“I’m sorry, Mister Ryan… I didn’t know.. I.. I swear I had no idea Fontaine had something to do with it…”_  
  
Jack stared at the door in front of him, watched the shadows on the floor that creeped out from under the door of moving feet. He was frozen to the spot and could only hear the panicked cries and screams of the woman on the other side of the door. Terrified of Ryan, a voice that had been so pleased to see him was now begging for her life.  
  
 _“I’m sorry.. no please, don’t I loved you! I.. no, no don’t please, don’t no!”_   
  
The door slid open, there was no one inside, only the body laying on the bed with blood splattered up across the wall and along the poster. A song played in the background, something about a man being grand as Jack stared at the body of a woman who had once thought that of Ryan. He wondered if that song had been playing when she’d been killed, if Ryan had just left her there, in a bloody mess, to rot with a love song playing the background. A very mockery of her feelings.   
  
He took a step towards the door, but winced when he felt a pounding in his skull, stumbling and clutching the door frame as images flashed in front of his face. Images of the farm house and then his family, focusing on his mother and zooming in on her face, before the flashing images and vertigo left. He looked around the room, everything else was the same as it had been, nothing was out of place.   
  
Jack wiped at the sweat that had built up on his forehead, walking to the bed and staring down at her body. He felt a great deal of sadness. He almost wanted to cry. How was the world so cruel? On the surface it had never felt so..   
  
An audio diary resting at his feet caught his attention. He meant down and picked it up, lifting it and pressing play. The woman’s voice came through the speakers. A Jasmine Jolene if the poster above the bed was anything to go by. Her voice was panicked and scared. She sounded terrified of Ryan finding out and looking at what he did to her when he did find out, well, she had every reason to be scared.  
  
 _“That creepy Doctor Tenenbaum promised me it wasn’t gonna be a real pregnancy, they’d just take the egg out once Mister Ryan and I had.. I needed the money so bad… But I know Mister Ryan’s gonna suss it out, gonna know I wasn’t being careful… gonna know I sold the… Mister Ryan’s gonna be so mad at me…”_  
  
Jack dropped the diary to the floor, shaking his head. It was too cruel, this world under the sea was too cruel.   
  
“Hey, how about some fuckin service round here!”   
  
The voice startled Jack out of his brooding. They sounded drunk and he walked out of the room, which had more in common with a tomb than anything else. He found what he expected, a man sitting at a bar, a box of nitroglycerine next to him and a bird mask on his face. Another one of Cohen’s disciples, Hector if what Em had said was right.  
  
The moment the man spotted him he bolted and Jack sighed, before jumping down from the stage and chasing after the third disciple. It would all be over soon, that’s what he kept reminding himself. It would all be over and he’d never have to do any of this ever again.

* * *

  
_Hector Rodriguez,_   
  
_It’s All Grift:_   
  
_You know what? Art.. music… poetry… it’s all grift. Cohen’s got Ryan wrapped around his lil’ pinky… and why? Because he tells him what he wants to hear. “Rise, Rapture Rise!” Nuts! That stuff was stale before it came out of Cohen’s pen. I’m through with the whole piñata. Let’s see that old fruit try an’ keep me here…_

* * *

**Note: I hope you enjoy this chapter! I am currently working on a second Rapture story, which is more of an AU that's just a bit of fun really. Hopefully I'll have the first chapter of that posted soon! If any of you are interested... watch this space! :D**


	13. Somewhere Over the Rainbow

_Sullivan,_   
  
_Bump Culpepper?:_   
  
_I just got the word to put the bump on Anna Culpepper. This isn’t some gangster or hard-nosed political operative. We’re talking about a dizzy twist what wrote a song or two that got under Ryan’s wig._

* * *

It was coming to an end. You could just feel it. Almost like there was something on the air and Clayton… well, he was also gifted with the information the Luteces had given him. They’d explained that once Jack came back to Rapture, he would be seeing the surface. They also explained that Fontaine would be killed.   
  
It was an interesting predicament to be in. To be sitting with a man that you knew would not be breathing soon, that would somehow be dead and buried. To already know the outcome of their fate, it was awful. Even after everything Fontaine had done, Clayton couldn’t bring it in himself to hate him. He loved him like a son would love a father, but he knew that he was too dangerous. Fontaine could not reach the surface, their lives depended on that and at the same time, Clayton couldn’t wholly say he saw a monster when he looked at him.   
  
He’d committed awful things, yes, that was without a doubt, but still Clayton could not see him as a monster. He couldn’t see him as a villain, not when there had been so much good along with the bad. Fontaine was complicated and didn’t always act like a bad person. There had been moments when he was kind. To Clayton at least, but he suppose he was special in that way.   
  
The young boy glanced at Fontaine who was still trying to get back into the frequency to contact Jack or his mother. Cohen had blocked it, which was surprising because how did Cohen know how to do that, but at the same time… was it really that surprising. They’d all had time on their hands. They’d all had to learn new skills that they hadn’t needed to before this war and game of survival had begun. Some of these skills were better than others, some were down right disturbing to even consider, especially with the whole killing people. Learning the best and quickest methods of killing someone.   
  
At the end of the day, these few hours might be the last he’d ever have with his father figure and it hurt to think about. He didn’t want to loose his dad, he’d lost so much already, but he knew… he knew deep down that Frank Fontaine… or… whoever he really was, could never be the man he wanted him to be. Not anymore at least. That ship had sailed a long time ago and now there was no Limey or Reggie to hold him back, no one to offer guidance, there was nothing that was off the table to him. He’d kill everyone and anyone to win. Maybe even Clayton himself.   
  
When he thought back to how times had changed, how the city had rot and decayed, the people along with it… what was left? What was there left to save of this place? Was it even worth trying to talk some last minute sense into Fontaine? Try and plead with his father that this was wrong, try to get him to see… but he doubted it would work. Fontaine wanted Rapture and he was going to get it. There was no doubt about that. Nothing would change his mind either, he only had one goal, but that goal seemed rather fruitless and pointless now. There was nothing left to save. Even the ADAM was worthless in Clayton’s opinion.   
  
Was Fontaine so obsessed with winning that he’d do anything to win? That now it didn’t matter that he wasn’t winning anything so long as he beat Ryan. It felt like that was the only reason he was doing this anymore. Just so he could beat Ryan, that was all that mattered now, beating Ryan. Proving he was better and being able to lord it over him for the very brief moment Frank decided to keep him alive.   
  
It wasn’t worth it. Not after everything they’d lost, that they’d both lost, it wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth any of this. So much death… so much suffering and the end an empty prize.

* * *

  
Em was sat on one of the steps in the atrium watching with a dull eye as Jack placed the third picture on the stand. Hector… she almost felt sorry for him. Almost.   
  
Hector used to drink himself to near oblivion every time she saw him. In fact, she couldn’t recall a time when he’d been sober. She knew why he drank, it was to deal with Cohen’s nonsense and gradual loss of sanity. She knew that she, as a recovering alcoholic, should feel some sympathy. She feel a little bit of empathy towards the man that had once been Hector, but she didn’t. Instead she only felt the same feeling she felt now whenever she saw a dead body. Thank god that wasn’t me. Morbid for sure, but she couldn’t afford the luxary of being empathetic, that was a good way to get yourself killed.   
  
Almost over, almost over… she wouldn’t have to do this for much longer. Soon she’d be leaving Fort Frolic and planning a form of escape after Ryan’s death. If they could kill him that is. He seemed to be just like Rapture himself, too stubborn to die. If she had any form of belief in her, she’d maybe believe that Ryan’s own life force was connected to the city in some way, but that was a foolish notion. Still, a part of her idly wondered that if they did kill Ryan would the city just crumble to pieces instantly afterwards.   
  
Hepheastus was the heart of the city or at least it used to be, but Ryan’s office was located in that half of Rapture. So maybe it wasn’t the core that was the heart of Rapture, but Ryan himself?   
  
She snorted at the idea and Jack tossed her a funny look. She shook her head and waved her hand, dismissing him. He wouldn’t understand. He was an outsider and wouldn’t get the inside joke. Then again who was left that would? Fontaine?   
  
Em frowned as his name ghosted across her mind, because yes he would probably get the joke and find it hilarious, but also that bastard should be dead. Very, very dead. Nope, instead it was Reggie and Limey and O’Riley and everyone else that was dead, while he was.. well, not sitting pretty, but was doing a damn sight better than any of the previously mentioned.   
  
She didn’t know how she was going to deal with him, once all was said and done. What would happen to Jack? How would she get Clayton away from the smug bastard? She doubted Fontaine would hand him over willingly, it wasn’t in his nature. Come to think of it, what would he do about her? Keep her around? Unlikely. He probably couldn’t wait to put a bullet in her head, for once they their feelings were mutual.   
  
Better question, just who was Jack anyway? How’d he even find this place? He looked as innocent as a newborn baby lamb, but had the skill with a gun that she’d only seen after years of practice. Just didn’t make any sense. There were questions hanging all around him and for some odd reason, she couldn’t shake the feeling that the answers were staring her right in the face. That if she knew what to look for she’d be able to figure it out. She wasn’t stupid, far from it, it was just a means of figuring out what were the answers and what were red hearings.   
  
Too many things were going on for her to keep track… she usually found herself figuring one thing out only to be confronted by something completely different. It was a lot like engineering in a way. You figured out one problem and then got slapped in the face with another.   
  
Jack took a step back from the picture he’d just framed, grimacing a little as he did so. She supposed she couldn’t blame him, Cohen’s.. ‘art’ was a sight to behold and for all the wrong reasons.  
  
“Almost done…” he breathed, offering her a shaky smile. “Are you okay?”   
  
“I’ll be better once this is done.”   
  
“Right…” his smile dropped a little. “I.. I’m working as fast as I can, you know.”   
  
“I’m sure,” she replied curtly. She didn’t mean to be so sharp or harsh towards the boy, but she was tired. She just wanted all of this to be over. To be fair Jack didn’t deserve it, he hadn’t done anything wrong, he’d just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.   
  
She felt like she was back to her old self. The type of person she’d been when she’d first came to Rapture, closed off and reserved. Using sarcastic and snarky comments to keep people at an arms length, never wanting to get close to anyone again. She couldn’t handle the idea of loss, the grief that would follow it, it hurt too much and then, like an idiot, she’d let people close. She’d made friends, she’d allowed herself to fall in love and what did she get in return? A broken heart and a pile of rotting corpses. What was the point in making friends anyway? She did plenty fine by herself, she always had, now all she had left of her friends was the guilt and emotional baggage their death had brought along.   
  
_“That’s three of four…”_ Cohen’s voice suddenly cut over their small talk. _“What’s that look? You don’t like it, do you?”_   
  
Em’s eye widened a little. She knew that tone of voice. It was the tone of voice that hinted towards Cohen’s constant violent mood swings and the only warning you got towards an incoming tantrum.   
  
_“I don’t need to be judged by you… by anyone!”_   
  
Em’s fingers tightened around her gun and she was quickly on her feet, her one good eye was darting around the room in a panic.   
  
_“Screw you!”_ Cohen yelled down the radio. _“Screw all you fucking doubters! Here’s what I say to all of you!”_   
  
Well…. _fuck._   
  
The room suddenly dropped to a red tinge, music was playing around them. If she had cared to pay attention to classical music she would’ve recognised it as ‘waltz of the flowers’ from The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky. Needless to say she didn’t care for such music and in this moment she really didn’t care for it.  
  
“Jack!” She yelled over the music. Kid was gonna get himself killed, worse yet he was probably going to get her killed. “We need to-.”   
  
“Way ahead of you,” he replied smacking at a splicer that had dropped down from the ceiling.  
  
Oh you have to be kidding! He’d sent splicers!? She thought it was just going to be Cohen. Where was the maniac, where was he?!   
  
She was panicking she knew she was and yet she couldn’t stop herself. Cohen had been the one maniac she’d always been on relatively good terms with. She’d always managed to stay on his good side with careful words and even more careful actions. You didn’t want to put the wrong foot forward when dealing with Cohen, the man was a maniac and that was before he’d taken ADAM. He’d always been a little unstable, the ADAM only emphasised it.   
  
A spider splicer had dropped down in front of her and she shot it in the head without a blink. Muscle memory taking control while her brain struggled to catch up.   
  
“There’s music…” Jack mumbled as he ducked another swing of a fish hook and fired a crossbow bolt into the attacking splicer’s head.   
  
“Is that really what you should be focusing on right now?!”   
  
“No.. no.. you don’t get it..” He looked up at the ceiling, at the spotlights that were resting on the pair of them, casting a while light on the two of them. Like a knife cutting through a sea of red. “It’s.. a performance…”  
  
“A _what?!_ ” Em ducked two blades and slid across the wet floor, sea water splashing up her face. It was cold, but in her frazzled state she hardly noticed.   
  
“A performance,” Jack said, taking a few steps away from a splicer that was flipping towards him. He even shouldered his crossbow and instead lifted his wrench from his side. “This isn’t a fight…” he went on, dodging the splicer’s swing, before raising his wrench and cracking the splicer across the head in time with the beat. “It’s a dance,” he looked Em dead in the eye. “Cohen’s asking us to dance.”   
  
That was the most ludicrous thing she’d ever heard and yet, as she watched Jack time his strikes to the beat of the music… it somehow made sense. It would certainly match Cohen’s insane view of the word, his macabre and unconventional view of art. Many would describe a fight like a dance, especially if the opponents were equally matched, because then it became a game of skill. Movements would be fluid, a beat and rhythm would suddenly appearing and in a blink of an eye you weren’t watching a fight, you were watching a dance.  
  
Jack skilfully back tracked and swung again, timing it to the beat and killing the splicer. These ones were very weak, they obviously hadn’t spliced up as much as the others. She was just grateful there were no Houdini splicers in the midst of this.. dance? It felt wrong and right to call it that.   
  
Soon she found herself following along. Killing to the beat of the music, firing her gun at the perfect timing. It felt.. wrong. Unnatural. She didn’t think she’d be able to watch a professional dance the same way again.   
  
The sound of skulls and bones being crushed joined the music. Gun shots accompanied by smoke and explosions of both bodies and architecture joined it. The horrific sound of skin and muscle being torn up or battered, almost akin to the sound you’d hear in the butcher’s shop. The soft sound of tissue, muscle, bone and sines being ripped and crushed, torn and shredded until the thing stopped moving.  
  
Yes, she stood by her previous statement, she’d never be able to watch a dance the same way again.   
  
Eventually the music dimmed, the lights came back on, the splicers lay sprawled across the floor with various injuries. Jack and Em were covered in splatters of blood, sea water and god knows what else. Her companions sweater had soaked it up like a sponge. The blood followed the weave that ran through the awful knitwear making the pattern stand out against the creamy colour.   
  
He wiped at the blood on his face with the back of his sleeve, eyes a little dimmer than before. Not so much childlike innocence shining in them as there had been. She supposed… when you joined in on something so sick it would kill your innocence. Worse yet.. Jack had figured it out. He’d worked out what Cohen had wanted, even if he was angry everything to Cohen was a work of art. Even his anger and he expected people to follow him in it. She’d been too panicked to think it through, so Jack had to delve into that little world of insanity and figure it out for them. He’d had to look into Cohen’s twisted mind and come up with the answer.   
  
Em wanted to comfort him, but what was there to say? She didn’t know if comforting him would make things better or worse.   
  
_“I’m sorry for that outburst,”_ Cohen said, not really sounding sorry but certainly putting on a good show of it. _“You’ll have to forgive an old fool his artistic temperament.”_   
  
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. ‘Artistic temperament’, yes that was one way of putting it.   
  
_“The birth is so close now. The labour pains can blur the judgement and drive the passions of even the finest spirits.”_   
  
Biggest load of bullshit she’d ever heard and she’d worked for Fontaine, Ryan and _Sinclair._   
  
“Guess I should find this last guy, huh?” Jack muttered once it became clear that Cohen wasn’t going to be speaking again. His voice sounded a little more hollow than it had before and she frowned at him.   
  
“Are you alright?” She asked and he shrugged at her, running his hands across his shotgun he’d brought out. “Jack?”  
  
“I figured it out.”   
  
“Huh?”   
  
He looked up at her, eyes as empty as her own or the one she had left at least. She knew that look of course. The look of someone that was starting to.. not attach themselves to their own mind anymore. To distant themselves from the mayhem else they be scooped up along with it.   
  
“I figured it out,” he repeated. “I figured out what Cohen wanted… what does that say about me?”   
  
_Ah._   
  
“It says that you’re smart,” she replied, voice level. “And that’s all it says. You figured out what Cohen wanted, but you aren’t Cohen. Don’t confuse the two.”   
  
His eyes seemed to regain that spark again and he smiled at her, looking more like a person again.   
  
“Thanks…” Jack looked back towards the entrance to Poseidon Plaza. “I’ll get this done and then.. on to Ryan. Then… it’s all over,” he smiled and closed his eyes, looking at peace with the idea of ending someone’s life. “It’ll be all over…”   
  
That was a lovely idea and she wanted to believe him… but she knew the truth. As long as Fontaine was still breathing, this nightmare wouldn’t be over.  
  
Jack had disappeared she realised and Em sat down on the steps again, staring at the dead bodies while she ran her fingers along her rifle. Her finger tips brushed against the engraving of ‘AD’ with the angel wings and the skull. Angel of Death. Her old name. It had commanded respect and fear once upon a time, now it was a relic. Almost as useless as the name ‘Atlas’, there was no power in it. Just a cover, a mask to wear. To pretend or to hide behind she wasn’t too sure.  
  
“Off the little moth goes…” Cohen hummed behind her. Relaxed again, for the moment at least, but Em still felt herself tense. It didn’t help that he chose to stand on her blind side. “Though, I see him more as an angel.. like you I supposed. Flitting about and taking life where ever you go…” she could hear the smile in his voice. “My dear Valkyrie you are a sight to behold when you finally let go… I do hope your dear.. _‘Atlas’_ doesn’t decide to dispose of you after all this business is done with.”   
  
The way he said the name Atlas made Em frown. There was.. an undertone, an unspoken truth in the tone and she turned to stare at Cohen who smiled coyly at her. He looked amused at her obvious confusion.  
  
“Don’t look at me like that,” he grinned. “We artists see many things and your darling Atlas is more then he claims to be…”   
  
Em schooled her face into something passive and rose an eyebrow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about and he isn’t _my_ Atlas. You can stop calling him that.”   
  
“Ha! I don’t suppose he’s anyone’s… he doesn’t even belong to _himself_ anymore,” Cohen laughed. “No, no… he’s quite the actor.”  
  
“Cohen…”   
  
“You think I didn’t notice?”   
  
“Notice what?”   
  
He smiled and walked down the few steps to stand in front of her, hands folded in front of him and smile pleasant but teasing.   
  
“Notice how he used the names of one of my very own plays. I suppose he should be happy that the names themselves sound Irish. How very convenient for him,” his eyes twinkled. “Though it seems the concept of Moira was based very much off you.”   
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Cohen.”   
  
“Do not act stupid, my dear Valkyrie!” He snapped at her, before the smirk returned. “It doesn’t suit you. I’m no fool, I may be alone in this place,” he gestured around him. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t keep an eye.. that I don’t.. listen to the tittering and constant prattle that still fills this city. Quite a feat considering most are dead…” he idly looked at his nails a moment. “Who… is… Atlas…?” He quoted the posters. “I suppose that was an inside joke on his part…”   
  
Sander Cohen glanced at her, before he moved forward slowly. Em’s hand tightened on the gun, but she forced herself to remain calm as once again he leaned towards her blind side and whispered in her ear. She forced down a disgusted shudder when his breath ghosted across her neck, rising goosebumps and making her hair stand on end.   
  
“I… know… who… Atlas.. is…” he paused before continuing. “That old bald buck doesn’t know when to quit does he?” She froze and he laughed, probably noticing. “He’s as stubborn as Ryan. Though between you and me… I think I prefer this face better.”   
  
Cohen stood up and brushed down his clothing, straightening out the wrinkles or at least attempting to. Really it was a pointless action, the suit was far too damaged to begin with. Sander though would forever still want to look his best.   
  
“And let’s be honest,” he continued, that smile was back on his face again. “You certainly preferred this face over his other one. I suppose, my dear Valkyrie, you were right,” he stepped around her, walking up the steps, that damn smile on his face. “He really wasn’t the man you thought he was.”

* * *

  
Jack starred down at the charred remains outside the record store. It was over. As the shutter went off on the camera, he’d finally finished this… madman’s game. He could leave, they both could. He didn’t think he’d been happier in his life, the only thing that might compare would be the feeling when he finally left Rapture all together. This unknown and known place.   
  
Ever since he came to Rapture Jack has been more confused than he ever recalls being. He knew the way to buildings that he shouldn’t even know existed. Sure Atlas would.. say things, but sometimes he knew before Atlas even said them. That was scaring him a little and Jack didn’t know if he wanted to know the reason. He wasn’t too sure if he could handle the truth of why he knew this place and yet didn’t.   
  
Shaking his head, he wandered back towards the main Atrium of Fort Frolic. Of all the disciples he’d killed Silas Cobs had been the only one he hadn’t had a problem with killing. The man was, for the short time Jack knew him, an awful person. He could only imagine what he used to be when he had more of his faculties intact.   
  
He ignored whatever Cohen had said over the radio, he’d gotten quite good of tuning the man out. Which was no easy skill, Cohen just had a voice that seemed to seep into your head and.. unfortunately stay there. He idly wondered what Cohen would’ve been like when he was sane… if there ever was such a time.   
  
He doubted it, but you never know… people had a way of surprising you.  
  
Jack entered the Atrium, finding Em sitting on the steps again, looking out of it. If he was being honest, she looked shell shocked, her face was pale and blank, her grip on her gun was so tight he knuckles had gone white. He wondered what could’ve possibly have happened while he was away. He didn’t see any new bodies, so she hadn’t been attacked, but if he was being honest, he very much doubted that getting attacked would cause such reaction now. If it ever did. She seemed like a hard woman, not by nature but by necessity.   
  
“It’s done,” he said in way of greeting and she looked surprised to see him, but nodded her head, standing up and brushing down her jumpsuit. The blood that was splattered across her face had dried up, she hadn’t bothered to wipe it away, not like he had. Maybe she just didn’t care anymore?   
  
Jack reached up to the quadtych, placing the final photo in its frame and then the lights dimmed instantly, before the spotlight fell at the top of stairs. He was surprised to see Cohen standing at the top, a black rabbit’s mask on his face.   
  
“It… is.. Ac-ACCOMPLISHED!” He cried, ripping away the mask and extended his arms out. As he did, confetti exploded out of the shell like designs that looked like trumpets on the stairs. The sound of people clapping and cheering filled the air as well as music.   
  
Cohen climbed down the stairs, extending his arms and taking thanks from an imaginary crowd. Em had slowly backed away to rest in the shadows. She seemed to do that a lot, Jack noticed, like she didn’t like being the centre of attention at any moment or maybe she was planning to escape. It was hard to tell. Maybe she was just looking forward to leaving and was already getting a head start. He couldn’t blame her.   
  
“Let me see it…” Cohen mumbled walking up to his latest art piece. “My god.. my god… my god… my god… my god… my god..” He mumbled, his hand at his face as he stared up at the photographs and macabre statues. “It’s… it’s _beautiful_ …” he breathed and Jack suppressed a grimace.   
  
He thought he heard Em snort or scoff from her shadows, but he wasn’t sure. When he looked back at her, she was looking over her rifle and shaking her head in dismay, mumbling something to herself that he couldn’t quite catch.   
  
“You’ll find your path to Ryan is now clear,” Cohen said, addressing him directly and Jack took an unconscious step backwards. Having the mad artist’s intense gaze on him was unsettling. “Tell him Sander said, ‘Hello’,” he sharp smile crossed his painted face before he glanced to the side and smiled a bit more smoothly. “Oh yes… you may avail yourself upon one of my lesser works as a token of our time together,” he walked to two stands that had glass cases over them. Only one rose to show a new tonic. “If you had become my one and true Disciple,” Cohen went on, gesturing to the second table were a fancy box sat under lock and key. “You might have been worth of seeing inside the box of my most private Muse… but who knows if _that_ man is yet even born…” he turned sharply to Jack and glared at him. “Now… _Go!_ ”   
  
Jack did not need to be told twice.   
  
He abruptly span on his heel and almost ran out of the Atrium. Em had looked vaguely amused at his actions, but she was also quick to follow him out of Fort Frolic. He’d be a lot better once he’d put this place behind him and was very, very far way from Sander Cohen.   
  
Last stop was next… Ryan… Jack almost felt giddy. It would all be over, he’d be back topside and could forget that this place even existed.   
  
The radio at his hip crackled to life and for a brief moment he felt dread that it would be Cohen’s voice. Words could not describe the relief he felt and the joy when instead Atlas’s voice came over the radio instead. Oh god he’d missed hearing his friend speak.   
  
“What happened to you? I’ve been trying to raise you for a dog’s age,” Atlas sounded concerned but also annoyed. He sighed and quickly followed up before Jack could answer him. “Never mind. Would you kindly leg it over to the ‘sphere and get on down to Hephaestus? It’s time to settle up with Ryan.”   
  
Jack had been moving quickly before, but at the sound of his friend’s voice, that speed had doubled. He was almost sprinting and Em was shocked into running after him. Climbing into the bathysphere next to him, slamming the door on the way inside and Jack pulled the lever that sent them down into the icy depths of the Atlantic.   
  
Almost over. It was almost over… just one more hurdle, one more life he had to take and then it would all be over.   
  
He’d be topside. He’d be safe.   
  
It was almost over.

* * *

  
_Sander Cohen,_   
  
_Requiem for Andrew Ryan:_   
  
_I could have been the toast of Broadway, the talk of Hollywood. But, instead, I followed you to this soggy bucket. When you needed my star light, I illuminated you. But now I rot, waiting for an audience that doesn't... ever... come... I'm writing something for you, Andrew Ryan. it's a requiem._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dead! Sorry guys, got caught up with a bunch of stuff and then I hit writers block and to top it all off some personal stuff happened in my life that I won't go into here but.. yeah I couldn't write for ages. Now I'm back again! 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this chapter... things are getting tense... like they weren't tense enough before? XD


	14. St George and the Dragonet

_Andrew Ryan,_   
  
_Mistakes:_   
  
_Could I have made mistakes? One does not build cities if one is guided by doubt. But can one govern in absolute certainty? I know that my beliefs have elevated me, just as I know that the things I have rejected would have destroyed me. But the city… it is collapsing before my… have I become so convinced by my own beliefs that I have stopped seeing the truth? Perhaps. But Atlas is out there, and he aims to destroy, and destroy my city. To question is to surrender. I will not question._

* * *

  
Jack was almost bouncing in his seat on the way to Haephestus. He couldn’t believe he was almost finished that soon he’d be leaving this sunken hell hole. He could only imagine how Em must feel but she didn’t appear to be any different. If anything she looked a little more withdrawn into herself.   
  
She sat away from him, fiddling with her gun. It almost looked like a nervous twitch. Like she didn’t know what to do so kept her hands busy and her mind was far away from what was going on right in front of her. She wasn’t looking at anything in particular, just staring at the wall blankly.   
  
“Are you okay?” He asked her gently and her one good eye looked at him. Her expression didn’t change, but he could’ve sworn that the look in her eye was gentle. Almost kind.   
  
“I’m fine,” she responded, tone devoid of emotion. “I’ll be glad when all this is over.”   
  
“So will I,” he agreed, nodding his head. “You… used to work here didn’t you? In Hepheastus I mean.”   
  
“I did once, yes,” she let a ghost a smile cross her face. “Feels like years ago now.. I suppose it was… years ago, I mean. I.. I left and worked for Fontaine completely after a while.”   
  
“Why?”   
  
She shrugged and fiddled with her gun again. “He paid better.”   
  
Jack nodded slowly, looking out at the sea through the little window in the bathysphere. So calm and serene, a juxtaposition in comparison to the insanity and hectic life inside the city. He supposed it must of always been like that. Even when the city worked, it would never sleep. Forever moving, forever keeping the mystical great chain moving.   
  
“Out here it’s almost beautiful,” he said quietly.   
  
“It was beautiful inside… once..” Em whispered looking at the floor. “It was a paradise… but Ryan made a mistake after building it. He added the one thing you should never add to a paradise.”   
  
“And what’s that?”  
  
“People.”   
  
The little sphere docked itself in the bay and slowly rose up to the surface, the door opened and Jack was immediately hit with the smell of sea salt and oil. Huge bronze looking gears turned in the water, towering pipes ran along the ceiling and walls, what they were carrying was unknown. This station was by far the cleanest Jack had seen, but it was by far the least welcoming.   
  
It was nothing but industrial, no comfort, no personal touch, no softness. Just the harsh reality of industry, a shining representation of it in the form of gears and pipes, metal and oil. No room for humanity, no room for nature, just the rush of pushing forward.  
  
Jack gulped a little, for some reason this place made him more scarred than any other place. Maybe because it was near the end?   
  
As he took a few uncertain steps out of the bathysphere, Em followed behind him, staring blankly ahead of herself.   
  
“I never thought I’d be back here…” she whispered quietly, sounding more like she was talking to herself than to him. “I… I don’t remember it being so…” she looked around. “Lifeless… cold… I don’t remember it being so harsh…”  
  
Jack didn’t know what to say to that. What could he say to that? He hadn’t seen Rapture in its hay day. Maybe there had been a time where such a place was welcoming, where it was warm and inviting, but he very much doubted that. Now it just looked cold and harsh. Like metal or like Andrew Ryan himself.   
  
_“Watch yourself. Ryan’s stirring. We best keep to our knitting,”_ Atlas spoke over the radio, sounding just as tense as Jack felt. _“It’s time to either run the table or go home empty. Ryan’s got the genetic key to Rapture. We get that from him and we get out of this hellhole. We don’t, then we’re ghosts.”_  
  
Jack shuddered a little. He’d seen the ghosts of Rapture. The echoes of a life that had once been, he didn’t want to join them.   
  
“The genetic key…” Em mumbled, almost sounding annoyed. “Of course… god I’m so stupid…”   
  
“Huh?”  
  
“Doesn’t matter, keep moving.”   
  
_“Now, would you kindly head to Ryan’s office and kill the son of a bitch,”_ Atlas snarled over the radio with nothing but hatred dripping from his words. _“It’s time to finish this.”_   
  
“For once I agree with him,” Em said, tightening her hold on her gun as she marched ahead. She looked more comfortable here then in any other place Jack had seen her. Granted that was Fort Frolic so not much to go off, but in this place she seemed right at home. Almost like she belonged here.   
  
“Didn’t you work for Atlas?” Jack asked.  
  
“Yes, I did.”  
  
“So you’ve met him in person?”  
  
“Don’t get your hopes up,” she mumbled. “He’s not as great as.. well, as his posters make him out to be.”   
  
They wandered through a glass pipe system, having to kill two splicers on their way. One of them had pure electricity running through their entire body, like Jack’s hand when he had electro bolt equipped. The female splicer’s body dimmed once she was dead, even the blue glow in her eyes died away as she went along with it.   
  
“That was your first shocker. Figures they’d be around here,” Em scrunched her nose up in disgust. “They probably spliced up with electro bolt to take care of the generators. Idiots.”  
  
“You sound sympathetic.”  
  
“Sympathy is likely to get you killed in this place,” she replied, reloading her rifle with a little shrug. “I shut out sympathy a long time ago. Besides, wouldn’t be the first bastards to find comfort in a needle… or at the bottom of a bottle for that matter…” she marched onwards. “They used to be drinkable… but complications arose, like always and they went back to the needles. Still, my sympathy goes the moment these sick monsters see a little sister,” Em’s face contorted into a snarl. “You watch them go weak at knees at the sight of her and all her ADAM, well…” the glanced back at him. “They cut a less sympathetic figure.”   
  
He swallowed looking uncomfortable for a moment. He couldn’t believe how harsh this woman was to these people. He felt bad when he was killing them because the reason they were like this… it wasn’t their fault. The only fault lay in the hands of those who sold the product and lied to them.   
  
_“I see Cohen’s lost his touch,”_ Ryan’s voice suddenly cut through their conversation. _“If you knew him when… when he used to believe in the work, in the struggle. And now, he rots in that never-land, waiting for someone to come and tell him he’s still got it,”_ he sounded mocking as he said those words, before saying. _“I suppose that’s why he let you live.”_   
  
Em shook her head and walked forward, the door opened to reveal another room, a bloody corpse welcomed them at the entrance. It looked like one of the workers, it probably had been at some point. If it wasn’t for the clothes it would’ve been hard to tell if this thing had been human. Blood was splattered up the wall, a Ryan industry sign sat above the body and on either side two signs warned of dangerous machinery.   
  
_“You can taste it, can’t you?”_ Ryan mocked over the radio. _“Andrew Ryan!”_   
  
Jack screwed his nose up and glanced to Em who also seemed disgusted. She shuddered and started walking around up the side, but was almost shot by a turret had Jack not yanked her back in time. A splicer came running at them and while Jack dealt with the turret, Em dealt with the splicer.   
  
He shocked the turret and hacked it, because you never know when you might need it, glancing up to see Em shoot the splicer in the face, the back of its head exploded in a confetti of blood, bone and brain. She scowled at it a moment, before narrowing her eyes, almost studying it.   
  
“Oh… _fuck_ …” Em winced and covered a hand over her mouth a moment. “ _Oh fuck, fuck, fuck…_ ”  
  
“Are you ok-?”   
  
“If you ask me that _one more time_ I’m going to shoot you!” She snarled. “What kind of question is- do I look okay to you?!”  
  
“No, but-.”   
  
“Then why would you ask?!”  
  
“What’s wrong?” he gestured to the body. “Did you know him?”  
  
She was silent, glanced at the body, glanced back at him and nodded once.   
  
“How well?”  
  
“Well enough,” she replied quietly. “We used to drink together. He… he made the best vodka…” Em gripped at her rifle a little tighter. “A good friend. Too loyal to Ryan.. figures he’d be here, guarding his master like the ever loyal dog he was, but…” she squeezed her eyes shut tight and took a steady breath. “It’s kill or be killed. He would’ve killed us without hesitation… I..” Em opened her eyes and for once looked deeply saddened. “I’m sorry Karlosky.”   
  
Jack watched as she knelt down and began to rifle through his pockets, looking for supplies and bullets. Dead was dead, you needed to take what you need and you couldn’t stand on principles. Jack imagined she’d had to rifle through many old friends pockets to find something to use.   
  
“Can’t believe he spliced,” Em mumbled as she searched. “He was always against it… suppose times got tough.. or Ryan forced him to do it,” she closed her eyes and shook her head. “You should’ve said no, Karlosky.”   
  
Jack gathered some supplies that lay scattered on the floor under a pipe, he put some away in the bag he was still carrying, before walking to Em. She was already standing, staring at the body, an unreadable expression on her face. If had to guess she was probably trying to rationalise what she’d just done in her head. He guessed he had the luxury of not knowing who these people were. He couldn’t put names to faces, not like Em could. He didn’t know any of them. He didn’t know them from, heh, Adam.   
  
They were strangers, nameless faces that could hardly be described as faces anymore.   
  
“Are you ready?” He asked softly. “Do you need a moment?”   
  
Em looked at him, her face blank but she shook her head, muttering something in Norwegian before finally saying. “You’ve got too big of a heart, kid.”   
  
“I don’t see that as a liability.”  
  
“It is down here.”   
  
“Not really,” Jack shrugged. “I try to look at it like I’m ending their suffering, not ending their life.”  
  
“That.. that is a much better way of looking at it,” she admitted. “And I envy you for that.”   
  
He cautiously put a hand on her shoulder and offered a gentle smile. She stared at him blankly, almost like she no longer recognised compassion when she saw it. How long had she been here? How long had she shut herself off from human emotion? Would she be able to find her way back?   
  
“Okay…” she brushed his hand off shaking her head. “Let’s not get too confused here. We’re here to do a job there is no..” she gestured between them. “We are not friends.”   
  
Jack frowned. “I would say we are.”   
  
“Well we aren’t!” Em snapped backing away from him. “I don’t have friends. I don’t do friends.”   
  
He casted a glance at the dead splicer, the only one he could put a name to. “I thought you said he was a friend?”   
  
“He- he was- that’s different!”   
  
“How?”   
  
“Because it is!” She turned around and began marching towards the door again. “We need to get this over and done with. Kill Ryan and that’s that. End of discussion, end of this partnership.”   
  
“Aren’t you and Tenenbaum friends?”  
  
“Jesus Christ _no!_ ” She rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t be friends with that Nazi _bitch_ if she was the last person on earth! The things she’s done…”   
  
“She’s trying to correct her mistakes.”   
  
“Some things can’t be corrected! Some things can’t be forgiven!”  
  
Jack tilted his head. “I wouldn’t say so. I think you should always give people a chance…”  
  
“And that’s why you’re an idiot,” Em snarled, the door opened and she stepped through. “Albeit a useful one.”   
  
He frowned at the back of her head, but followed her. As they began walking around the corner, Jack covered his mouth and nose, resisting the urge to throw up. There was nothing but the smell of rot coming from the next room. Even the medical pavilion hadn’t smelled this bad, that place had just smelled of copper and sanitiser.   
  
Em stumbled herself and covered her nose and mouth gagging in disgust. The smell was palpable. You could taste it in the back of your throat, making Jack want to gag once more. He wanted to take a deep breath to compose himself, but that would be a mistake. He’d just inhale more of the smell that way and then he probably would throw up.   
  
After a taking a moment to get used to the smell or as used to it as they could, both ventured forward and once they reached the room… they froze.   
  
Jack had seen many things in Rapture. Many awful, unimaginable, horrendous things. He’d seen a woman cut into by an insane doctor, he’d seen men and women turned into plaster sculptures, he’d seen the fallout of man’s greed in the form of the hulking Big Daddies and their charges. Yet after all these things… all these deaths and monsters, nothing could quite prepare him for what he saw in front of him.   
  
Bodies. Bodies hung up on the wall, pierced with a single metal harpoon. They were all in various degrees of decay, most of their faces had been bashed in or they’d been horribly burned. One body was facing away from the middle of the room, while the others were turned to face forward. To look down on the people who would make their way up to Ryan’s office. Trophies for the man to lord over the heads of others and warnings to anyone who thought they could stand against him.   
  
Beside him Em was shaking, eye wide and lip trembling despite that fact she was clearly fighting to keep her face passive and neutral. It wasn’t working. He could see the fear and horror on her face, she was struggling to comprehend what she was looking at and so was he.   
  
In comparison to all the things he had seen, this shouldn’t be as shocking, but for Jack it was. Whenever Ryan spoke… he never sounded insane. He sounded perfectly sound of mind, like all his faculties were in place and even so.. he’d still done this. Still pinned people up on walls, grotesque trophies like a hunter would do with his prized catches.   
  
_“A worm looks up and sees the face of god!”_ Ryan spoke, his voice nothing but mocking as he continued sounding casual, like he was talking about the weather. _“But look around… it’s a regular convention of worms in here. They all had mothers, fathers, people who loved them,”_ he ticked off the list uncaringly, with each word Em’s shaking only seemed to increase. _“They got married, fucked their wives. What makes you think you’re any different?”_ He paused as if waiting for an answer, before adding, almost as an after thought. _“I haven’t chosen a spot for you on the wall yet. Let me know if you have a preference.”_  
  
Jack closed his eyes and tried to collect his thoughts. How could someone be so.. evil? True evil didn’t exist, he couldn’t believe… but what else would he call this? It was evil, that was all you could say about it.   
  
He glanced at Em who still hadn’t taken her eyes off the scene before her. She looked like she was having a hard time accepting what she was seeing and was panicking. Her hands were shaking even more than before and her lip trembled violently as she looked on at the bodies.   
  
Carefully he placed a hand on her shoulder and she jumped, startled by the action and her gun was half turned towards him, but she’d stopped herself after realising it was just him. Em stared at him for a moment, searching his face and he offered what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Truth be told he was unnerved to see her so scared. She’d always held this untouchable aura about herself and now she was shaking like a leaf.   
  
She brushed past him, keeping her eyes downcast so she didn’t have to look up at the bodies.   
  
“Let’s just get this over with…” she mumbled quietly.   
  
He followed her as she turned away from the scene heading towards a second door. She’d managed to school her face into its usual passive look now that she wasn’t looking at the bodies. Jack wondered if she knew any of them, if she recognised any of the people hanging on the wall and simply couldn’t bare to look at them any longer.   
  
_“How like all parasites who ever tried to walk in stolen shoes,”_ Ryan’s voice came through the radio, sounding more patronising than Jack had ever heard it. _“I’d explain the science that renders what you’re trying to do impossible, but that would be like playing Mozart for a tree frog.”_  
  
Em scoffed and rolled her eyes, Jack stood back a little stunned when she shot two splicers and killed them without blinking.  
  
 _“Rapture is coming back to life,”_ Ryan went on. _“Even now, can’t you hear the breath returning to her lung? The shops reopening, the schools humming with the thoughts of young minds? My city will live. My city will thrive!”_ He snarled the last part. _“And, when that day comes, we’ll use your tombstone for paving tiles.”_   
  
“Could he get any more.. delusional!” Em snarled, she sounded angry. Angrier then Jack had ever heard her. “Does he honestly think there is anything left in this place besides the empty husks that used to be people?!”  
  
“We’ll stop him,” Jack insisted. “We’ll stop him and then we’ll be out of this place, you’ll never have to look back.”   
  
She stopped walking, staring a head of her, not even bothering to turn to him as she spoke.   
  
“Do you think it’ll be that easy?” Her back was rigid. “Do you really believe that… after you kill Ryan, escape is going to be that simple?”  
  
“It’s.. how Atlas frames it.”   
  
Her back tensed at the mention of Atlas’s name.   
  
“People lie,” she replied, her voice cold. “People make up stories to make you do things. People smile at you as they stab you in the back!” Her voice raised a little, attracting the attention of some splicers that both he and her had to deal with.   
  
With the amount of conviction in her voice it almost sounded like she was talking from her own experience. What had happened to her down here? What was her story? Oh sure he could piece bits of it together, but he didn’t know the entire thing.   
  
Finally she turned to face him, her face was cold, the harshest he’d ever seen it. It made him take a step back, he was starting to see why Atlas had put this woman with him. She wasn’t just some hired help, she was a force of nature in her own right.   
  
“Believe me when I say this, Jack,” Em said, lip pulling back in a snarl. “The only reward Atlas will give you… is a knife in the back.”

* * *

  
Fontaine raised an eyebrow at her dramatics.   
  
Em used to say he was the dramatic one and sure he had a flare for it, blame it on the performer in him, but she was just as guilty.   
  
He was half tempted to snap at her on her private frequency for even saying something like that to his ace, but Jack was just in too deep. He’d focussed on the idea of getting out of here and going home. Fontaine snorted at the idea. Kid didn’t have a home. Rapture was the closest he could get to calling home and stupid bastard didn’t even know it.   
  
Still, his good little puppet marched on like a good little soldier that he was, ignoring her comment and pushing past her. He’d even had the good right to look slightly insulted on Fontaine’s own behalf. He didn’t even feel the need to radio them, that would maybe be too suspicious.   
  
His eyes lazily trailed over to the hall filled with dead bodies and he stared at it quietly contemplating. Fontaine was a bastard and he wore that title with pride, but Jesus christ Ryan made him look tame.   
  
He sensed someone standing next to him, glancing to find Clayton, the only other person in the room staring at the bodies. He held a similar poker face to his mother, but Frank could see the terror that wanted to creep out of the boy. Odd, how he wasn’t scared of Fontaine or any of the others, but Ryan clearly terrified him.   
  
Frank looked back at the bodies on the wall.   
  
Yeah.. he couldn’t blame the kid. If he’d been his age faced with this he’d of been plenty scared himself. He’d probably would’ve turned around and run. He didn’t run anymore. He was tired of running, tired of hiding, tired of keeping the cops off his back and keeping his head low. And by god was he tired of Ryan.   
  
Never had someone gotten such a rise out of him as Andrew _fucking_ Ryan. The man’s name alone made his blood boil. He’d been a constant thorn in his side the moment he’d arrived in his precious city and after Reggie and Limey… well, that was a done deal then. Any ideas of keeping Ryan alive had been thrown out the window, not that there had been many to begin with mind. It was more a case of he wasn’t sure how the people’d react if good old Atlas murdered someone, though he doubted anyone would’ve minded that much. Now though, there was no one to impress or carter to. He was alone…   
  
Fontaine frowned.   
  
Alone. Hm. That was a new one.   
  
He’d not been alone in a very long time, not since he’d been a child… around Clayton’s age. Fontaine knew himself.. he didn’t do very well alone. Limey used to tell him it was because his thoughts caught up with him and he’d react dangerously. Or stupidly. It depended how charitable she was feeling on the day she discussed this topic. Good mood; dangerous, bad mood; stupid, very bad mood; biggest moron she’d ever seen.   
  
Limey had certainly had a way with words.   
  
He almost smiled as he remembered her. Remembered both of them, Reggie and Limes… the only people to ever stick by him in his life and now…   
  
Frank’s eyes glanced over at the image of the people once more and he could clearly see the body of Reggie hanging near the entrance to Ryan’s office. He’d been almost cut in half by that shotgun blast, his body had to stitched back together when he was pinned up on the wall, like some sort of raggedy Ann doll. Now the big bruiser’s body, or his lower half at least, was sagging slightly. The stitching was tearing through the weakened dead skin. Limey’s body was still hanging on the gallows.   
  
The rage pumped through his veins and he closed his eyes to calm down. He was uncontrollable when he was angry. Another flaw Limey didn’t hesitate to point out… and prod at.. until he snapped. Because nothing apparently brought her more joy than driving him around the bend. Would Reggie help? Sometimes, more when he was younger. It was easier to poke fun when ‘the boss’ was a fourteen year old bronx kid that according to Reggie a strong breeze could knock over.   
  
Frank resented that remark, but he couldn’t very well disagree with it.   
  
“It’s almost over isn’t it?” Clayton said softly.  
  
“Almost,” he agreed, watching as Em and Jack made their way through the skeleton of Hepheastus.   
  
He remembered the first time he’d been in that place. The first and last time mind you. The first time he’d ever had the _pleasure_ of meeting Em and made that deal. Probably one of many deals she regretted making, but he supposed there was a lot of things she was regretting now. Maybe even regretting coming to Rapture in the first place.   
  
“Then what?”  
  
“What?”   
  
Clayton stared at him, his eyes boring into his very being. Damn the kid’s eyes for being like his own, even more so now that he’d grown up a little. He hated that they were bothering him again, now of all times, but he supposed it was deserved.   
  
“After Ryan’s dead… what then?”  
  
“I run Rapture,” he replied like it was obvious. “I make money. More money than you could ever dream, kid.”  
  
The kid stared at him for a long moment before shaking his head. Even in despair or disappointment, Fontaine wasn’t sure. Not that he cared. The kid wouldn’t understand, how could he? He was just a kid.   
  
“It doesn’t seem worth it,” Clayton said, taking a seat next to him, staring at the various images on the screens.   
  
At the dead bodies and the splicers, shambling around in barely imitations of a human being. The Little Sisters dutifully collected the ADAM out of corpses their watchful guardians always close by. The dead that rot in the place they died instead of being buried, shops that were closed and destroyed, lives that were lost and long gone. It was all on display for the remaining sane people in the city to see.  
  
“You’re a kid. You don’t understand.”  
  
“You’re right, I don’t understand,” he frowned at him. “I don’t know how you can excuse this!” He pointed to the monitors. “Look at what you’ve done! Don’t you regret any of it?!”   
  
“No.”   
  
It looked like the boy’s wind got knocked out of his sails and he let his hand drop, staring at Fontaine with a mixture of horror and realisation.   
  
“You- you’re not kidding are you?”   
  
“I never lied to you, Clay’, twisted the truth a little… but I never outright lied.”   
  
“Bullshit.”  
  
“I oughtta’ scrub your mouth out after that comment,” he said sounding amused. He always did find it funny when Clayton swore. Trying to sound all big and tough. It lost its edge when your voice kept breaking as a squeaky twelve year old’s would.   
  
Twelve years old… christ, had it really been that long? Twelve years? He suddenly felt.. old.   
  
Twelve years. Huh. A lot can change in twelve years and a lot can fall apart. It really hadn’t taken that long to tear Ryan’s precious city to pieces, in fact if he was being honest with himself and he always was, Rapture had been falling apart from the very beginning. Fontaine had just been the incoming wrecking ball that tore it all down quicker than what it would’ve done naturally.   
  
“Well, when it’s all over,” Clayton mumbled, pulling his legs up to his chest and wrapping his arms around his knees. “I hope you’ll be happy.”   
  
“I’ll be happy once Andrew Ryan ain’t breathin’.”

* * *

  
Em dodged another splicer, it screamed bloody murder and she silenced it like she had many others. With a single bullet to its head at close range. Like always its head exploded into a wonderful confetti of blood, bone and brain. A sight she was getting all too used to seeing.   
  
Behind her, Jack was handling many splicers by himself. It seemed the hordes of them didn’t bother him the slightest, he was able to deal with the monsters that had once been people better than anyone she’d seen. His mastery over the plasmids he used was also a sight to behold. He seemed to just be a natural.   
  
Who the hell was this kid? Where had he come from, why was he here? So many questions and not enough time to answer them. No time to answer them really.   
  
They started walking through to Heatloss monitoring, her eyes fixed ahead of her. Jack was keeping up with her. He really was better at this than she’d originally thought he would be when she’d first seen him. In all honesty when she’d first seen him she’d been surprised he’d made it as far as he had. He was tall and built like an ox, sure, but that didn’t match the terrified look in his eyes. The innocence, almost like a child’s.   
  
“This can’t be easy for you,” Jack suddenly said as they entered Heatloss, Em remembering the way like the back of her hand. She didn’t need to read the signs to see know where she was going.  
  
“What do you mean?” She mumbled, before ducking a spider splicer and shooting its leg. Jack finished it off with a shotgun blast to the face.   
  
“You knew a lot of these people didn’t you?” He explained. “I mean… you worked with them, right?”  
  
Yes she had, but she imagined that a lot of the people she’d worked with were dead. She was hoping that a few of her friends were still alive. It was why they were here in heatloss. Kyburz and Pablo used to work here a lot. If she could find her friends…   
  
“I did,” she replied carefully, keeping her tone cold. “I didn’t like a lot of them. Shooting them is easier than you think.”   
  
At his silence she looked back at him, only to find him staring at her with barely hidden surprise and slight horror. Really, he should be used to her cold behaviour by now. She’d only broken a little when she’d killed Karlosky and then.. seeing Ryan’s goddamn trophy room…   
  
She shuddered a little as she remembered that room. He put Steinman to shame. Em had of course heard stories about the trophy room. She’d not really believed all of them at first, but after seeing it for herself, the stories hadn’t done it justice. It was far more horrifying in real life than any whispered tale she’d heard of the place.   
  
“So.. why are we here? Is there something we need?”   
  
“I’m looking for…” Em paused and scrunched her nose up. How to put this? “I’m looking for.. some people I knew… my.. friends…”  
  
“Thought you didn’t have any friends?”   
  
His words were almost teasing, a desperate attempt to lighten the mood. When she glanced at him, she saw a teasing smile on his face. He must be getting used to Rapture if he could pull that off.  
  
“I did.. do…” she didn’t know which tense to use. Past or present. “They work here. They’ll help, I’m sure they’ll help…”   
  
That was if Pablo wasn’t spliced up to high heaven now or if Kyburz… Kyburz… she’d missed Kyburz the most.   
  
“And you think they’re still alive?”   
  
_She had to._   
  
“Of course,” Em said, not looking at him, not really believing the words as she spoke them. “Pablo was too… stubborn and Kyburz was too cautious.. bordering on paranoid. They’ll still be alive.”   
  
_They had to be._   
  
“If they’re not I’ll kill them again,” she mumbled, her grip tightening on her gun, running her thumb over the engraved symbol again. Her nervous tick she’d developed over the year and six months of having this gun.   
  
Jack didn’t say anything. He probably doubted her, doubted that they were still alive and the rational side of Em agreed with him, but the hopeful side of her wanted to believe. Wanted, no, needed them to still be alive. Just to have someone. To find a friend in the midst of this… hell. She hadn’t seen a friend in a long time. Tenenbaum didn’t count and she didn’t know Jack that well.   
  
The room was empty, save for splicers. Two leadheads and a shocker. Jack dealt with the shocker while she took out with leadheads. Again headshots, explosions of brain and skull and the smell of copper hung in the air along with the smell of oil and rust. No one else was here, it was mostly empty. Looked like most of the workbenches had been cleared out. Everything useful was probably gone, no sign of Pablo or Kyburz.   
  
They were… maybe in the workshops… or they’d hidden themselves in Kyburz’s office…? That sounded right, yeah, they were probably just hiding in the office…  
  
Idly, Em walked over to Pablo’s desk, finding an audio diary there, Jack was picking the pockets of the splicers they’d killed.   
  
Almost hesitantly, fearing the worst, she plucked up the diary and ran her fingers over it. She turned and rested against the desk, looking over the battered old thing. It was dusty, clearly hadn’t been used in a while, like most of the things in this place she imagined.   
  
Finally building up the courage, she hit play on the recording. Relief flooded through her when she heard Pablo’s voice come through the speaker. She couldn’t believe the idea was flitting through her mind, but she’d honestly missed him.   
  
_“I didn’t recognise the twist that came into the shop today,”_ his voice crooned over the speakers as he went on. _“Stacked like Sally and dressed to the nines. She’s play her cards pretty close to the vest, but you ain’t gotta be no college yob to see that she’s into some bad china,”_ Em rolled her eye fondly and little out of exasperation. Good to see that in the middle of a war, Pablo was thinking of the important things. _“She was asking about magnetic locks, and some such,”_ he said and that caught Em’s attention. She listened closer to the diary now. _“I played it coy, but she took wise. After she showed me ‘round her backyard, I gave her directions to Kyburz’s tool shop,”_ Em shuddered and gagged a little at the implications. _“Rapture’s gone to hell, but sometimes the great chain still cuts you break.”_   
  
The diary ended and she placed it back on its final resting space. The desk was quite barren compared to how she remembered it and idly she found herself staring out at the ocean floor window. The hot magma that flowed through the glass pipes all around Hepheastus cast an orange glow on her. It made her own hair almost look molten, like the magma itself.   
  
She was lost in thought, eye staring and watching some fish swim past the window, gazing out at a few of the other pipes. It felt odd to be in Hepheastus again. It felt odder to be here in the quiet. There wasn’t a sound of idly chatter or work place chaos, just the steady drone of the machines and the heavy smell of oil and sea salt.   
  
If she closed her eyes… maybe she’d be able to imagine things how they once had been, remember a time before all this madness… but no, that was dangerous. Very dangerous. If she remembered… she might not be able to pull the trigger if it came down to it.   
  
“Em?”   
  
She turned to Jack, he was standing at the top of the steps, looking at her expectantly.   
  
Right. They were here for a job and that wasn’t for Em to get lost in the past. She had to lead him through and make something that would get past her very own creation.   
  
Her eyes drifted back to the audio diary on the desk and a thought crossed her mind. Magnetic locks huh? Sounds like whoever this twist was she’d been thinking of killing Ryan too and… Pablo hadn’t a clue. Or more he hadn’t thought of it like that because why would he? He just saw an attractive woman, what’s more to her than that?   
  
_‘I gave her directions to Kyburz’s tool shop…’_   
  
Kyburz.. how did he fit in all this? Sure he knew.. a little.. how the locks worked on Ryan’s door, but she’d burnt the plans and hadn’t allowed anyone else to see them. It had all been hush, hush, because of how paranoid Ryan had been.   
  
Had he… had Kyburz been working on something? Had he also been trying to get to Ryan?   
  
Em felt dread rise up in the pit of her stomach.   
  
“Come on,” she mumbled straightening up and pointing towards the exit. “Let’s go, I know where we need to head next.”   
  
Jack nodded and walked towards the door, reloading his gun, which was probably why when the door opened and he was face to face with a splicer, he was unable to do anything. Time slowed down and moved in slow motion as Em watched in horror as the splicer shot Jack point blank in the head.

* * *

  
_Anya Andersdotter,_   
  
_Going to Heat Loss:_   
  
_I had to go jungle-style with that filthy ape for three weeks, but he finally spilled the beans on how to get to Andrew Ryan. Generate a sympathetic overload in Harmonic Core number three. That’s simple. Now all I gotta do is figure out what the hell a sympathetic overload is, and for that matter, a Harmonic Corse number three! Piece of cake for an electrical engineer. Too bad I design Lady’s shoes. Gonna go see the grease monkeys left alive in Heat Loss Monitoring, see what I can shake out of their trees._


	15. We'll Meet Again

_Yi Suchong,_   
  
_The Vita Chamber:_   
  
_Initial Deployment, Vita-Chamber/Client Ryan Industries. Stage one is complete. Sinclair and Alexander tried to explain the science to me, but Suchong does not believe them. They keep saying Plasmid reconstruction this and quantum entanglement that, and then poof, dead people come back to life. Bullshit! Of course, Ryan will only allow it to be tuned to his genetic frequencies for the testing…_

* * *

  
Jack gasped awake and in a glowing tube. He blinked several times, watching as blue electricity ran up the edges of the glass and along his body, but it didn’t hurt. It more tickled than anything. He’d remembered seeing this things around the place, but hadn’t given them much thought.  
  
Vita-Chambers. He didn’t know what they’d been used for, but now he did. That splicer shot him point blank in the face. He should be dead, but he wasn’t. He was still alive and he was still in Hepheastus. He could track down Em and they could continue with their mission.  
  
He took a few shaky breaths, gently pushing the glass doors to the side and stumbled out. Jack blinked, trying to get his bearings and steady his own hammering heart. It’d be pretty bad now if he died from a heart attack after being revived from a gunshot to the head.   
  
Jack looked back up at the Vita-Chamber. The blue light and electricity flickered and crackled. It sat innocently in the corner of the room, completely unassuming. If this brought people back from the dead, how was it that not everyone came back? There were plenty of bodies littering Rapture. Was their a limit on the amount of times you could be revived or were they not close enough? He wracked his brain for an answer, but was coming up empty. Either because he didn’t know or because his brain was still righting itself after becoming nothing but bloody confetti.   
  
Steadily he walked towards the entrance to the rest of Hepheastus. He was in a daze and didn’t fully register the splicers that he shot down and killed on his way. Only once he heard the sound of Em did he snap back completely.   
  
She was pacing angrily by some controls, splicers were dead at her feet and she was having an argument over the radio with someone. Atlas. Of course, she probably didn’t know what to do and was asking for help. Then again, she didn’t seem like the type to ask for help.   
  
“Em?”   
  
She jumped and almost took his head off with a poorly aimed shot, eye wide and mouth agape. He couldn’t blame her, he was still stunned himself that he was still breathing. That he was back. Alive. Walking.  
  
“What.. the… fuck…?” She breathed staring at him. “What the _hell?!_ ”   
  
Jack winced as she threw a few more colourful curses and phrases alternating between English and Norwegian. She gestured angrily at him, before throwing curses down the radio when Atlas tried to speak.   
  
“Em? Em, it’s alright, I’m-,” Fine? Okay? He didn’t know what was the proper etticate for coming back from the dead and surviving a gunshot to the head.   
  
“How are you alive?!” She finally settled on, stuffing the radio back on her belt and marching up to him. “I watched that splicer blow your head off! How are.. how are you standing here!?”  
  
“I.. those.. Vita-Chamber things…” he shrugged. “You know the chambers with the glowing lights?”   
  
“I know what Vita-Chambers are!” She snapped. “That shouldn’t of helped you! They don’t work for anyone but-!”   
  
She stopped yelling and snapped her mouth shut. Em was staring at him, she looked haunted and she also looked like she was taking him in for the first time. She was looking at him, _really_ looking, studying everything about him. When she seemed to find what she was looking for, her eyes widened and she took a few shaky steps away from him. It looked like she’d worked something out, but was having a hard time believe it for herself.   
  
“That’s not..” She whispered. “But.. it would make sense.. it…” her lip wobbled and she closed her eyes trying to compose herself. “Oh my god, what did that monster do…?” Em whispered under her breath to herself. Jack had a feeling he wasn’t supposed to hear what she said, but he still did.   
  
“What did who do?”  
  
“Nothing,” Em shook her head. “Nothing just…” she eyed him again before shaking her head and briefly began pointing in another direction. “We need to go.. we need to finish this and it seems you’re indestructible.”  
  
“Yeah,” Jack laughed a little too high pitched to be okay and she rose an eyebrow at him. “I’m fine.”  
  
“You got shot in the head.”   
  
“I’m fine,” he assured, rubbing his forehead where the bullet had entered. Not a mark. Not even a scratch. “See? Completely fine.”  
  
“Are you sure?” She asked hesitantly, sounding genuinely concerned for him for once. Jack nodded his head, before regretting doing that and stumbling a little.   
  
“Yeah. No. I will be,” he finally settled on. “Where are we going?”   
  
The concern melted off her face and she went straight back to being cold and distant. Nodding in the direction they needed to go. A sign post sat above a door saying ‘workshops’ and it glowed green. A harsh contrast compared to the orange glow of Hepheastus.   
  
“That way,” she mumbled. “We… might find an old friend of mine there,” Em admitted before frowning and looking more determined than before. “No. No we _wil_ l find him there. There’s nowhere else he’ll be.. maybe.. maybe they’ll both be there…”  
  
“Who?” Jack asked softly.   
  
Em didn’t answer but continued to mumble reassuring words to herself assuring herself that these two people would be there. That everything was going to be okay. She didn’t sound very convincing if Jack was being honest with himself. In fact her words sounded hollow.   
  
They entered the workshops and were immediately attacked by splicers. Despite only having his brains blown out a few moments ago, Jack reacted instantly and seemed to be in relatively good health all things considered. It was amazing what the science could do in Rapture, even bring dead people back to life. It still didn’t explain why only Jack had been brought back and none of the splicers.   
  
There must be a limit on the amount of times, he reasoned with himself. That was the only explanation. The only one that made sense.   
  
The workshops were quiet and Em seemed deeply unsettled by this. By the looks on her face she was expecting them to be alive with activity or to at least have someone alive in here. Talking. Somewhere, just something. The deeper they went into the the workshops and explored, the more reserved and walled off Em’s facial expression went. Gone was the last little bit of hope in her eyes and now she seemed to be waiting for the worst. Looking for the one thing that would confirm her suspicions.   
  
As they walked down the steps to the lower half of the workshops and both of them had to jump back as two machine gun mounted turrets went off. She yelled a few curses and Jack shuffled past them, dealing with the turrets himself.   
  
They were placed in front of a door and she stared at it, her arms crossed and looking both annoyed and not really surprised.   
  
“Goddamn it, Kyburz,” she mumbled walking up to the door. “Two turrets?! Overkill don’t you think?!” She yelled through the door, banging on the door angrily. “Come on! Open the door! I know you’re in there! It’s me!”   
  
Jack took a few steps away from her and began to explore. The workshops were very closed in, claustrophobic if he was going to put a word to it. He shuffled around a corner and jumped when a splicer greeted him. It had been rifling through the pockets of a dead body on the floor in a brown suit. An audio diary poked out from under the corpse, it looked like it would’ve been hidden in the inside pocket of the suit.   
  
The splicer charged at Jack and he froze the splicer before shooting the splicer and it shattered to pieces. Nothing to gain from the broken pieces but he was doing okay with his supplies for now.   
  
Carefully Jack slipped the audio diary out from under the body and hit play.   
  
A man’s voice came through the speaker, an Australian accent greeted Jack and it sounded nice. Pleasant. Like the man would’ve been welcoming and warm. Underneath it all though, the voice sounded warn out and tired, but what the man was saying peeked his interest.   
  
Quickly he ran through to Em who was still banging on the door angrily yelling all sorts of words through the door.   
  
“Em! Em!” He held the diary out and grinned. “Listen to this. I think I found something useful.”  
  
She stared at him, eyebrow raised but nodded. “Alright. What is it?”  
  
“Listen,” he hit play and the moment the voice started through the speaker Em’s face shifted. It went from hard to shocked and worried.   
  
_“What a barmy dream…”_ the man said sounding confused and amused, but still tired. _“Some kind of fruit tree, spinning like a top, and it was pouring juice down Ryan’s throat, choking the bastard.”_   
  
“He’s drunk,” Em whispered softly, but continued to listen.   
  
_“But it wasn’t a tree, really, when I looked closer, it was the core control, the gizmo that feeds the mag locks on Ryan’s gate. You can’t cut off the power, it comes right from the volcanic vents…”_ The man sounded tired now, but still excited, like he’d solved his big problem. _“Ryan always gets his juice. But I suppose you could drown the son of a bitch in it…”_   
  
The last part was spoken with such hatred and malice that it seemed to send a shiver down Em’s spine.   
  
She didn’t say anything for a moment, gripping at her elbows and looking lost, staring at the audio diary like it had physically hurt her.   
  
Em swallowed the lump in her throat before speaking. “Where did you find that..?”   
  
“Round the corner,” Jack said staring at the diary like it was the holy grail. “In coat pocket of a body round the corner. Poor guy. But-.”  
  
“A body?” Em echoed.  
  
“Yeah?” Jack blinked at her. “Just.. round the… corner…” he trailed off as she raced past him.   
  
Jack followed her and he only just reached the edge of the corner when Em let out a cry that could only be described as the sound of someone’s heart breaking and shattering. It was filled with nothing but despair and Jack was hopeless to do anything as he watched Em slowly sink to her knees and sob. She tentatively reached a hand out and brushed it over the corps’s mattered hair, tears streaming down her face and broken wails leaving her mouth.   
  
He stood at a distance and watched her, unsure of what to do or how he could help. There was probably nothing he could do. Going by her reaction, he knew that Em must of been close with the man on the tape. She was shaking as she continued to sob, muttering words and broken sentences. Apollogies that weren’t hers to give left her mouth as she gently ran her fingers over the mattered hair.   
  
“It’s not fair!” She cried. “He didn’t deserve this… he didn’t… he…” she sobbed and her shoulders shook with the effort. “…Should’ve been me…”  
  
“Don’t say that,” Jack whispered softly, he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “No one deserves this.”   
  
“Some people do…” she whispered back, looking up at Jack, her one eye almost boring into his very soul. “Some people do…”   
  
Jack wasn’t sure how long they stayed there. Em crying softly and him just keeping watch, making sure there were no splicers just around the corner or none coming.  
  
After a while she was able to pick herself up, thought it was a bit shaky and Jack held an arm out to steady her. Furiously, Em wiped at the tears on her face, sucking in a breath to try and return her breathing to normal.   
  
“We should… we should listen to that tape again….” She said, her voice was hoarse from crying and her gaze was empty, not really focusing on anything.   
  
“Are you sure?” He asked softly.   
  
“Yes.. I.. I need to listen, hear what he…” she closed her eyes and sucked in a breath before exhaling shakily. “I need to hear what Kyburz was saying. I… I wasn’t listening before.”   
  
“We can wait a little longer if you need,” Jack assured her, he was still holding the tape in his hand. “Just.. you know, take your time-.”   
  
“Oh just give it here!” She snatched it from him, walking away just out of his reach and hitting play on the audio diary.  
  
Jack stood back and watched her. She put the back of her hand to her face and seemed to be trying to stop herself from crying all over again. He didn’t think that was a good thing, if she was sad, she should cry and let it out, but he got the feeling Em didn’t like to express emotions like that so openly.   
  
Finally she turned around to look back at him, her good eye was rimmed red and she furiously scrubbed at it. Trying to hide any evidence that she’d cried again.  
  
“Okay…” she nodded her head, dropping the recording down on the ground carelessly. “He’s right.. he.. that idea would work. He’s describe an EMP device,” Em glanced at Jack and let out a suffering sigh. “An electro magnetic pulse. It would work. Trigger the circuit breaker on Ryan’s gate.”  
  
“And.. then we can get inside?”  
  
“It would restart the whole system, but we’d only have a small window of opportunity to do it,” she paused a second and thought for a moment. “If I know…. _knew_ …” she frowned at the use of past tense but carried on. “If I knew Kyburz as well as I did… he’d have somewhere to hide. A place to build this… secretly…” she trailed off and looked towards the back of the room. “There are rooms in some of the walls,” she suddenly said. “We.. we had them so we could keep an eye on things, make sure all the pipes were working and so we could access them. There’s on just at the back here,” Em pointed behind some filing cabinets. “Kyburz was always paranoid. He…” she swallowed and started again. “He would’ve picked the one that was the closest to his office.”   
  
Jack looked down at the body. “Looks like he was heading that way when he was ambushed.”  
  
“Ryan must of found out somehow,” Em said, her face contorting to barely concealed rage. She clenched her fist but it still shook violently. “Probably sent one of his goon squad to do.. to.. fuck, it was probably Karlosky,” she glared at the floor. “Stupid dog. Stupid, loyal dog,” she spat on the floor. “ _Kan han råtne i helvete,_ ” she snarled, before looking up at Jack with a determined look on her face. “Okay. Let’s check at the back of here. Kyburz probably already started on something.”   
  
They walked round the back passing a dead Big Daddy that was slumped over in the corner and found the hidden door, Em carefully slid it to the side and crawled in, with Jack following behind her. It was a tight squeeze and Jack had to duck a little bit to actually fit in, but there was a casing for a bomb that Em was already looking over. She ran her fingers over the welding carefully and looked mournful.   
  
“I never fully appreciated how talented he was…” she whispered. “Sometimes.. sometimes I forgot… I should’ve..” Em closed her eye and shook her head. “Okay. We’ve got a job to do,” she mumbled turning to look at Jack who had picked up a gene tonic that had been sitting on a desk. “Kyburz wouldn’t touch that stuff,” Em stated frowning at the glowing yellow bottle in Jack’s hand. “He.. he wouldn’t…”   
  
“Guess he got desperate,” Jack said softly as he looked it over, turning the bottle in his hands so he could read the label. “Damage research,” he stated.  
  
Em grimaced. “It’s still a full bottle. He never used it,” she wrapped her arms around herself and frowned at the floor. “Probably never got the chance.”   
  
“There’s an audio diary,” he nodded to it as he placed the bottle down. “Want me to-?”  
  
“Just hit play.”  
  
He nodded and pressed the button down. The tape whirled to life and Kyburz’ voice came through the speakers. Em sucked in a breath, but she didn’t cry again.   
  
_“The basic casing is ready,”_ Kyburz stated as he listed off the rest of the piece required to complete it. _“I’ve got one charge of Nitroglycerin in my office, that will serve as a catalyst. Now I need four R-34 lead shield wire stubs to pass the circuit. Then a half-can of Ionic Gel, that’s the pretty Betty of the mix,”_ Em almost laughed at his phrasing. _“Should send the core into compensation mode, push power down the line and trigger the circuit breaker on Ryan’s gate. That’s the theory,”_ Kyburz laughed softly sounding nervous and unsure. _“It’ll either work like a charm,”_ he went on, _“or blow up half of Rapture,”_ there was a pause before a mumbled. _“Nothing ventured…”_ then the tape ended.   
  
“Nothing gained,” Em whispered softly.   
  
Jack was nervous. He had no desire to blow himself up. He glanced at Em who was staring at the audio diary quietly. She looked like she was in her own world. Probably remembering things from the past, stories that Jack didn’t know and he doubted she’d be willing to tell her.   
  
“Is.. is he right?” He asked nervously.   
  
“About what?” Em replied looking at Jack, a small flicker of a smile appearing on her face. “About the device working or blowing up Rapture?”  
  
“Both?”   
  
She contemplated this before slowly nodded. “The device will work,” she agreed. “We’ll have to place it on the Harmonic Core number 3. So we can create a sympathetic overload and then it’ll do what Kyburz said. It’ll push power down the line and trigger the circuit breaker.”  
  
“And the blowing up part?”   
  
“It’s a possibility,” she nodded, before finally letting a smile fall on her face. “But as Kyburz said, nothing ventured, nothing gained.”   
  
Jack grimaced but nodded slowly. They had come too far. If they died by killing Ryan.. well it wasn’t ideal, but he didn’t want to let this man win and by the looks of Em’s face neither did she. In fact, she looked happy at the idea of destroying half of Rapture.  
  
“Alright,” she turned back to the device shelling, looking it over one final time before nodding. “I’ll get the Nitroglycerine, that’s dangerous stuff and you have to carry it steady. I don’t want you handling it. I’ll get the gel too,” she turned to eye Jack and looked him up and down. “You get the R-34s.”  
  
“And where are those…?”   
  
Em smirked at him. “Follow me,” she crawled out from the room and Jack followed after her.   
  
They didn’t have to go far. She walked straight up to the Big Daddy corpse and rifled through the back of the fallen beast for just a moment, before pulling out a square box with various wires poking out of it. She held it up for Jack to see and the smile only grew.  
  
“This is an R-34.”   
  
Jack stared at it, before looking at the Big Daddy corpse and the realisation slapped him in the face.   
  
“They’re only in Big Daddies aren’t they.”   
  
“Yep,” she popped the ‘p’ at the end, tossing the little box up and down in her hand. “We’ll need three more I reckon. I’d suggest finding a dead Big Daddy, but that might not be possible.”  
  
“I’m going to have to kill them aren’t I?”  
  
“I would imagine so, they don’t like people getting too close and you really need to rifle through to get these,” she crawled back inside the small space for a moment before reappearing, sliding the door shut. “You’ll be fine,” she assured him. “Besides, we’ve found out that you can’t die.”  
  
“It still hurts.”   
  
“Then I’d avoid the spinning drill,” Em said bluntly, looking Jack over a second she sighed. “Here, pass me one of your weapons.”   
  
He blinked and handed her his shotgun for a moment. Em looked it over, turned back and crawled into the space once again after sliding the door open. He heard a few noises of various tools being used, before she crawled out and handed it back to him.   
  
“Careful it’s still a little warm.”   
  
“That was fast.”   
  
She shrugged. “I’m good at what I do. You’ll be quicker at re-loading now. It can also take more buck. So now you can fire six shots and not just four. Not much, but it’s an improvement.”  
  
Jack smiled at her. “Thanks,” he tested the weight of the gun a moment before nodding in appreciation. “This is going to help a lot.”   
  
She waved him off. “Eh. It’s nothing,” she looked down at Kyburz’s body again and the good mood vanished, replaced with a sorrowful one. “Just.. promise me. If we don’t destroy Rapture and you do get to… get to kill Ryan,” Em looked him in the eye and glared a second looking furious. “Promise me you’ll make him suffer. Cause him as much pain as he’s caused us.”   
  
Jack didn’t want to do that. He just wanted to end it. He didn’t want to take any pleasure in killing someone, or make it last a long time, that wasn’t in his nature. He just wanted to end Ryan and end this whole waking nightmare, finally return to the surface.   
  
“I.. I can’t promise that, Em,” he said honestly, looking down at the gun. “I.. I’m sorry I can’t.”   
  
She nodded once, looking disappointed but not surprised. “Didn’t think you had it in you, you’ve got too big a heart. That’s a liability.”  
  
“No it’s not,” he whispered softly. “It keeps me human.”   
  
“Human doesn’t last long down here,” she replied, pushing past him and heading towards the office.  
  
“I don’t know… I’ve done pretty well so far,” he shrugged.   
  
Em turned to him and gave him a long level look. “You got shot in the head,” she stated. “If it weren’t for the Vita-Chamber, you’d be dead right now. Granted, you lasted longer then I thought you would have, but you still would’ve been dead,” she crossed her arms, narrowing her one good eye at him, the green suddenly looking cold. “I’ve survived twelve years down here, you couldn’t even last one day.”   
  
With that she turned around and walked up to the front door of the office that must of been Kyburz’s. She typed in the code, the same code it had always been and stopped short when the door opened.   
  
“Goddamn it, Kyburz,” she cursed under her breath. “The hell was wrong with you.”  
  
Jack peered over her shoulder to see the room was filled with electric trip wires. They sparked and crackled with blue electricity, it was like a spiders web of death. Criss crossing and arching over the top of each other and around every corner of the room.   
  
Em sighed and lifted her eye patch up so she could rub at her eyelids tiredly, before slipping it back in place and taking a tentative step forward into the room.   
  
“You sure you don’t need any help?” Jack asked as he watched her begin to navigate the room.   
  
“I’ll be fine,” she assured. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been electrocuted. It hurts, but I’ll be okay.”   
  
“Yeah, but-.”   
  
“Just go and kill those Big Daddies,” she snapped, glaring at him. “And save the Little Sisters while you’re at it. Shake a leg now,” Em said, almost sounding like she was copying Atlas. “The lord hates a laggard.”

* * *

  
_Pablo Navarro,_   
  
_Running Short on R-34s:_   
  
_Do you guys have any idea there’s a war on? If you don’t follow proper maintenance on those Big Daddies, they burn through those R-34s like them Eve’s Apple betties go through penicillin. I’ve got Atlas’ goons hitting us non-stop, and two dead mechanics just this week. We need to control costs! If I wanted to deal with amateurs, I would have stayed on dry land._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry guys I know it's been a while, but hey, an updated! Hope you enjoy!


	16. Dancers on a String

_Yi Suchong,_   
  
_Mind Control Test:_   
  
_(Puppy barking in the background)_   
  
_Suchong: Is that your puppy? She’s very pretty…_   
  
_Little Boy: Thank you, Papa Suchong._   
  
_Suchong: Break her neck for me._   
  
_Little Boy: What?_   
  
_Suchong: Break that Sweet puppy’s neck._   
  
_Little Boy: No… please…_   
  
_Suchong: Break that puppy’s neck.. would you kindly.._   
  
_Little Boy: No… no…(puppy whimpering) *snap*_   
  
_Suchong: Very good._

* * *

  
Em was hunched over the device, carefully placing the nitroglycerin on the front. Two empty cans of ionic gel lay at her feet, haphazardly kicked off to the side. It was small and cramped in this hidden space that Kyburz had used. Thankfully it wasn’t too closed in for her to feel the flashes of the blitz or the on coming shell shock. She could do without an attack right now, she didn’t want Jack to see that. She didn’t want his pity.   
  
She stopped in her work to gaze down at her fingers. A few were burnt from the electrical trip wires Kyburz had set up in his office. She had to bat a few down to get through and the sting of electricity hurt just like she remembered it, but it was almost a dull ache compared to having her eye torn out.   
  
Kyburz…   
  
Em frowned at her burnt finger tips. Had he been scared at the end? Had he glared at them as they beat him to death? He’d been curled up so chances where he’d been trying to protect his head. Not that it did him any good. How had Ryan found out? Everything had been so well hidden, not a chance that Kyburz would slip up, he was too cautious, verging on the edge of paranoia.   
  
She paused and her eyes flickered around the hidden room. Okay, so maybe Kyburz was more than a little paranoid, but by the looks of things he had a reason to be.   
  
Hephaestus had never been the most welcoming of places but it had never felt so cold and that wasn’t because most of the place was one giant furnace. It had been a working machine, filled with life and the hustle and bustle of workers. Now? Well, she imagined a ghost town would have a higher population than Rapture.   
  
She couldn’t spend another moment in this room right now, it was too enclosing and reminded her too much of Kyburz, maybe even more than his own office did.   
  
Em crawled out of the secret room, sliding the door shut just to be safe and began to wonder. Her gun was clutched tightly in her hand, her one good eye on the look out like always. She had no desire to end up the way Jack did. She couldn’t come back to life if she got shot in the head, the little bastard didn’t know how lucky he was. Then again, maybe dying was a blessing in disguise, at least she’d finally be rid of this place.   
  
She grimaced and shook her head. Couldn’t afford to think like that. She wasn’t going to die down here, not yet at least, not until she got Clayton to the surface. Safe and in the sunlight. Away from this god awful place, away from Ryan, away from Fontaine.. Fontaine….   
  
“Bastard,” she mumbled under her breath, scowling at the floor as she climbed the stairs to the top floor.   
  
Her blood boiled at the very thought of Fontaine, the whole drama and fiasco, the fact that she fell in love with Atlas.. it made her want to gag. She hated, loathed, despised that man. Maybe even more than she loathed Ryan. Then again, Fontaine wasn’t any where near the same league of evil as Ryan was. Oh sure, he wasn’t good man by any stretch of the imagination, but Ryan was something else.   
  
She recalled in the old days how people had been more scared of Fontaine than Ryan. They didn’t think that Ryan would break his own rules, that the man would play dirty, use his power to tip things in his favour. They obviously didn’t know what kind of man Ryan was. Though, true, Ryan hadn’t started the little sister program, he hadn’t stopped it either.   
  
Fontaine was a bastard, Ryan was the devil himself. Sell you a pretty lie before giving you the keys to your own cell to lock yourself away in, framing it like you had a choice.   
  
_“Before the final rat has eaten the last gram of you, Rapture will have returned. I will lead a parade. “Who was that,” they’ll say, as they point to the sad shape having on my wall. “Who was that?””_   
  
_Speak of the devil and he shall appear,_ she thought glumly as she listened to Ryan, no doubt, taunt Jack. Still, for all of Ryan’s clear insanity, he did raise a good question; _who_ was Jack?   
  
It didn’t make any sense, where had he come from, how had he got here? What was he doing here and why was Fontaine, of all people, helping him? Had he really gotten that desperate? Then there was the vita chambers, how had they worked for Jack? She knew, obviously, that he must be related to Ryan somehow…. but.. how was that even possible and how would Fontaine know?   
  
Em looked up at the sound of a splicer screaming and dodged a fish hook that was thrown in her direction as a spider splicer scuttled across the metal walk way above her. She was in the main chamber of Hephaestus and she’d almost forgotten about the splicers. Honestly it had been so quiet, but she imagined that was Jack’s doing now. Kid was awful good with a gun, almost like he was a living weapon, she’d never seen anything like it. He seemed just as surprised at his own skill as she was.   
  
She dodged the splicer a few more times before shoot it at least three times in the head, watching as it collapsed to the floor. She even show it in the head a fourth time just to be sure. Em hated those spider bastards, they were the worst ones to be created out of splicing, only just edging the Houdini splicers because it was a spider that took her eye.   
  
Eventually Em found himself in heat loss monitoring once more. Below her she could hear the sounds of a Big Daddy having a fight. Its roar shook the floor and a little girls scream soon followed. Jack was probably the one fighting the big brute, yet another monster Rapture and Ryan created. Sometimes Em didn’t know if she should feel sorry for them, but that would easily be a mistake. If she felt bad, she wouldn’t be able to pull the trigger. Best not to feel anything at all.   
  
The screams and cries died down, so either Jack had died and was being re-born in a Vita Chamber or he’d managed to put the Big Daddy down and was now saving the Little Sister.   
  
Em decided to take this time looking for a medial kit she could at least knick some bandages out of or hey, some bandages in a box. She knew they used to keep a lot around here because of all the burns people would get. Wondering to the back, she found a small stash of supplies. Another bottle of ionic gel, a lock box, some coffee that had long since gone cold and.. an audio diary.   
  
She stared at the diary for a long moment, debating in her head if she should pick it up and listen to the person was long gone by now. Either dead or spliced.   
  
Carefully she picked the diary up and immediately recognised Pablo’s hand writing. The messy barely legible scrawl that he would insist you could read and end up not being able to read it himself. The only person who could ever seem to decode the mess with Kyburz. How? Em had no idea and as a matter of fact, neither did Pablo, but it didn’t matter. As long as Kyburz could read the reports and decode them, it was fine.   
  
She pressed play on the diary and listened as Pablo’s voice came through, still sounding as cocky and arrogant as she remembered it. Almost snide in some of his comments.  
  
 _“Let me tell you something about Kyburz and all them university types… they’re so smart, except when they ain’t,”_ she almost rolled her eye. Yep, that sounded like Pablo. _“I put a couple of drinks in him last week, and before I could say “boo”, he’s telling me he’s got the code to his office keyed to the date of Australia Day.”_ Em almost faced palmed. Of all the people… _“Nows every weeks, I slip in real gentle and nick a buck or two from the till. The Aussie never notices, and I ain’t about to tell him,”_ Em snarled a little as she glared at the diary. It was an unknown well known secret about Pablo’s sticky fingers, but this was pushing it. _“Seems like there’s all kind of crazy stuff back there. Maybe… maybe one day I’ll get more ambitious.”_   
  
Em dropped the diary like it had burnt her.   
  
Pablo… looked..? Pablo knew about.. but then… then that meant…   
  
The cold dread soon turned into a fiery rage.   
  
That little snitch. So desperate not to get put on the gallows or Ryan’s fucking trophy wall, he’d gone and told Ryan about Kyburz. Of course she had no evidence of this, but it was heavily implied by what he said at the end of his diary. Had they all really meant that little to him? Where they all just something that.. that he used? Did their lives mean that little? She hoped he was dead, because she wasn’t sure what she’d do to him if he wasn’t.   
  
In a fit of rage Em stamped her foot on the recording, breaking and splintering the little device, the tape wheels went flying and the tape itself was unraveled.   
  
She felt a hand on her shoulder and whirled round, immediately slugging whoever it was across the jaw and winced at the pain that ran up her wrist and arm.   
  
“Ow! It’s me!” Jack hissed clutching at his jaw and glaring a little, while Em tried desperately to shake some feeling back into her hand.   
  
“What the hell is your jaw made of?” She hissed at him, hissing as she attempted to make a fist and felt a sharp pain. Great, probably sprained it. “Christ sake, kid! I’ve slugged much bigger guys in the face than you and it never hurt like this. Fuck, I slugged Fontaine in the face once.”  
  
“You did _what?_ ” Jack asked rubbing at his draw and looking a little stunned. “You punched Fontaine? He let you get away with that?”  
  
“Apparently I was too entertaining to kill,” she mumbled before glaring at him. “Do you have all the parts?”   
  
Jack nodded and tapped at his satchel. “It took a while, but I got there in the end. Freed all the Sisters that were around here too.”   
  
“Good,” she nodded before gesturing towards the door. “Lets get this over with then.”   
  
Jack glanced at the broken recorder and Em really hoped he wouldn’t ask about it. She didn’t want to talk about it, especially not to him. She didn’t know Jack, he wasn’t a friend, he was a means to an end. She helped him and she got her son back, provided that Fontaine actually hold up his end of the bargain.   
  
Speaking of the smug bastard he’d been unusually quiet. He’d never been one to shut up, like any good ego maniac, he liked the sound of his own voice too much. For him not to say a word, it was odd and she prayed that it didn’t mean something bad had happened. Her son was with that man and while Fontaine may like him in his own peculiar way, hell, even care for him, she was under no illusion that when the chips were down, he’d leave Clayton in the dust. Especially if it meant that he could get away scot free.  
  
Jack didn’t say anything or ask any questions about the audio diary and she was grateful for that. He must of learned by now that she didn’t share information about herself or more accurately she didn’t like to talk to anyone she didn’t know and trust. Right now, the only person she trusted was herself and Clayton. She didn’t trust Tenenbaum. Clayton did, but she didn’t. Too much ancient history convinced her that trusting the ex-Nazi scientist would be a bad idea.   
  
They managed to get back to Kyburz’s hidden room without much difficulty. Jack had either scared the splicers off or killed most of the ones that used to wonder around here. Either way, she was pleased, she wasn’t in the mood to deal with any more of them. She just wanted this to be over, she wanted her son in her arms and to be able to see the sun in the sky. She wanted out of Rapture and she wanted to see both Ryan and Fontaine dead.   
  
Jack and Em took a break in the room a moment to collect themselves. Turned out Jack had a collection of medical kits and he carefully took care of Em’s burnt fingers and probably now sprained wrist. It was quiet, neither of them really knew what to say to each other and Em wasn’t exactly a talkative person.   
  
In the end, Ryan decided to break the not so comfortable silence as he spoke over the radio.   
  
_“A man builds a city at the bottom of the sea. That’s a marvel. Another man happens to be on a plane that crash lands on the same city in the middle of the ocean. Why, that sounds more like… a miracle.”_   
  
“I hate that he points out some good points,” Em mumbled and Jack looked up at her confused.   
  
“What?”  
  
“Never mind,” she waved him off, clenching and unclenching her fist a moment. It hurt, but the extra support from the bandages helped a little. “That’ll have to do. Time to fix this bomb up and maybe blow ourselves up,” she began fiddling with the R-34s, carefully connecting them to the trigger for the nitroglycerin. “Either way, at least Ryan will be dead.”  
  
“Let’s go with the not blowing up version,” Jack mumbled behind her as he began loading up his gun. “I have a family to get back to.”  
  
“Oh yeah? What’re they like?”  
  
“Nice, calm,” she could hear the smile in his voice. “The perfect parents. They do everything right. We live on a farm in Kansas. I’m an only child, but my mum and dad say they still have their hands full. We had a dog once, a puppy. It died.”   
  
Em slowly turned to stare at Jack and his face was completely neutral. There was no smile on his face and even his voice had lost it’s usual chipper tone, if anything she’d say… it almost sounded like he was reading off a script. It wasn’t natural how he spoke about his parents, no kid spoke about their parents without having at least one moment to complain about them.   
  
“Perfect?” She echoed and shook her head. “Come on kid, no one’s parents are perfect. My Pappa was too damn stubborn for his own good at times, apparently my Mamma was worse. I get my stubbornness from her, my Pappa used to say,” a smile almost twitched at the corner of her mouth. “Bone in the nose. That’s what he used to say about me, that I got bone in my nose.”  
  
Jack shook his head. “No, my parents are perfect. We live on a farm, it’s nice and we’re living the American dream.”   
  
“I think people put too much weight on that,” she said quietly. “Still… sounds nice,” she nodded her head going back to her work. “The surface sounds… real nice.”   
  
They fell back into silence again, but it was less… uncomfortable. She could hear Jack getting himself ready for what lay ahead, loading up his guns, making sure his veins were humming with the power of ADAM and EVE, before patching himself up just a little.   
  
Finally the device gave a little whirl and the lights started to flash. It was ready.  
  
 _“Does it look like a real bomb?”_ She jumped at the Irish lit that came through the speaker on their radioes. _“It better. You got to put it on the core past Geothermal Control, and we’ll see if these needlenoses knew what the hell they were talking about.”_   
  
Em grit her teeth so hard she thought she heard them crack. Maybe even break under the strain and strength it took not to bite Fontaine’s head off to even doubt Kyburz’s skill, let alone her own.   
  
“Okay,” Jack stepped forward and reached for the bomb.“Let’s get this over with, right?”  
  
“Careful, that’s going to be-,” she started before staring in dumb amazement as Jack easily lifted the bomb into his arms and looked at her expectantly. “Heavy,” Em finished lamely, staring at him still. “It.. it is heavy, right?”  
  
“Not really,” Jack shrugged, though she did note that he looked surprised by that fact too. “No heavier than one of those big crates outside or the ones at the fisheries,” he glanced down at the bomb. “I just hold it steady, right? You can cover me and we’ll make it to the core.”  
  
“Right,” she blinked at him, turning around and crawling out, Jack close behind her.   
  
The two of them dashed through the empty corridors, a few splicers would run at them and Em would shoot any of them that got in their way. Sometimes Jack would be able to get a shot off with his Plasmids, freezing or setting some splicers on fire. She was honestly surprised that he could do that and run, while carrying a bomb. The kid was such a mystery. If they survived this, then they’d have to have a sit down and talk about just what and who the hell Jack was. Provided that neither of them had been stabbed in the back by Fontaine by that point.   
  
As they ran through door way to Geothermal control, Fontaine’s voice came through the speaker, still heavily disguised in that Irish lit. The only good thing about it was that at least she didn’t have to hear his annoying bronx accent that she’d had to put up with for ten years of her life. It grated against her every nerve.   
  
_“Looks like the ocean’s got an itch to retake this corner of Rapture. This happened right after the start of the war. Read about it in the papers. Head on in. I’ll see what I can dig up to help.”_   
  
If she closed her eyes she could almost fool herself that Atlas was real. That it was back in the old days when she didn’t know the truth. Part of her wished she could go back to that blissful ignorance, but it would do her no good. It would just hurt more when the inevitable happened. When Fontaine finally put that knife in her back.   
  
As they ran towards the elevator in the next room, taking care of the turrets on the way in, Em noticed that the area they needed to be in was flooded. There was no way they could get down there and she didn’t fancy taking a quick dip in the frigid water of the Atlantic Ocean. Also, no matter how strong Jack seemed to be, she doubted he’d be able to swim under water and drag that bomb through with him.   
  
“Great. Typical,” she started to curse under her breath and kick at the floor, rattling her already fused brain to try and come up with something. A way out of here, anything.   
  
_“I’m no engineer,”_ Fontaine spoke and Em glared at the radio on Jack’s hip. _“But if I read these plans right, you can channel that magma flow using the redirect valve,”_ she stared at the valve in question and felt like slapping herself. How had she not thought about of that? _“It’ll boil the off that water right quick, and you’ll be able to reach the core. But Ryan’s sure to take notice, might want to set up a perimeter, just to be certain.”_   
  
“I’ve got some proximity mines,” Em said, “but that’s about it.”  
  
“I’ve got some mines and some trap bolts.”   
  
She glanced at the smouldering remains of the turrets they’d destroyed, Jack looked over and grimaced. They were probably both thinking the same thing. Really shouldn’t of destroyed those turrets.   
  
“Okay,” she grabbed her mines and nodded to the doors. “I’ll set these up, you set some of yours up too and once I’m back here,” she pointed to the valve. “With you, set up your trip lines okay. Preferably make them chest height or neck height.”  
  
Jack nodded and they both set to work setting up their perimeter. It wasn’t much, barely a suitable defence. They really shouldn’t of destroyed those turrets, but they’d just have to make do. Somehow pull through this madness and what was certainly a death trap.   
  
Once they were done and as ready as they were going to be, Em nodded to Jack to start turning the valve.  
  
 _“Will these creatures kill you?”_ Ryan said, though he did sound a little nervous to Em’s ears. _“Even I don’t know. As you drag me closer to the abyss, you pull yourself right along with me,”_ she really hated how right he probably was. _“I offer you a quick death, Parasite,”_ he snarled the word down the radio, just as the first splicer came through the door and immediately got blow up. _“It will be preferable to what you will learn if you win.”_   
  
Jack frowned at the closing line and even Em found herself glancing at the radio in confusion. Did Ryan… know? Did he know that Atlas was Fontaine?   
  
She didn’t have time to ponder as a bullet whizzed past her head. She fired back at the splicer before it ran straight into the mine, blowing up and sending it’s broken body flying. Arms and legs had gone off in different directions and she was sorry glad she didn’t have to see the corpse for too long.   
  
More and more splicers came running at the pair of them, the grinding sound of gears could be heard as Jack continued to turn the valve, followed by the sound of explosions and screams. She desperately tried not to breath in the smell of burning flesh too much. The prickles of an attack just poked at her consciousness and she desperately tried to ignore it as best she could.   
  
Finally, Jack was able to turn the valve all the way and the magma came pouring in to the water. Soon all Em could smell was steam and she was grateful for it. She eyed the doors nervously, but no more splicers came running through to try and kill them.   
  
_“Are they all dead?”_ Fontaine asked almost hesitantly. _“Hope so. Best be heading on to the core.”_   
  
Jack had already picked up the bomb and squeezed into the elevator. He had to go down by himself first and she followed after. It was almost over, it was almost finished, just this one final push and hopefully… she could work out some way to get Clayton back and then leave this place.   
  
_“So far away from your family, from your friends, from everything you ever loved. But, for some reason you like it here,”_ Ryan was almost mocking Jack by this point, like he was dangling a carrot at the end of a stick or a… clue? Was Ryan hinting to something? _“You feel something you can’t quite put your finger on,”_ he went on. _“Think about it for a second and maybe the word will come to you: nostalgia.”_   
  
Em jumped over a dead body of a fellow worker, Jack close behind her.   
  
“Jack, what’s Ryan talking about?” She asked as they climbed onto the lift that would take them to the core.   
  
“I don’t know!” Jack yelled, but he sounded panicked and confused. “I don’t know.. I don’t know…”   
  
“Hey, hey!” She snapped her fingers in front of his face as he seemed to be spirelling. “Focus!”   
  
_“What did Atlas offer you?”_ Ryan sneered. _“A piece of my plundered city? Mark my words: your only reward will be a knife in the back.”_   
  
Em shuddered at those words and how true they were. She wasn’t an idiot. She could kid herself all she wanted, but deep down she knew that Fontaine would double cross. He probably wouldn’t even give her Clayton back, she knew what he was, the type of man he was. There was always another angle for him to play and as long as he had Clayton, he could play her in any angle he wanted.   
  
Just as Jack was about to put the bomb on the core, Em gripped his wrist tightly. He looked at her in bewilderment and confusion.   
  
“Just… wait a moment,” she said and he pulled the bomb back to his chest staring at her expectantly. He probably thought that all of this would be over soon. “I… I have son,” she admitted. “He’s stuck in this place and.. I’m.. I’m just trying to get him out, do you understand?” She gestured around them. “All of the things I’ve done, all of it! It was never personal, it was for my son. He’s in danger and this is the only way I can guarantee his safety. Do you… do you understand?”  
  
“Yes of course,” he smiled at her. “Em you don’t have to explain yourself to me, I don’t know.. I can’t imagine what it’s been like having to survive down here for two years in this.. nightmare,” he looked around the area they were in, before he turned to stare at the core almost looking lost in thought. “What I do know…” he said almost hesitantly. “Is that everything you’ve done to survive… you did for the right reasons.”  
  
“Not all of them.”   
  
“Fine, most of them,” he nodded to the bomb. “We’ve just got this one last bit to do, yeah? Then we’ll be on the surface. We’ll save your son, I’m sure Atlas will help.”   
  
Em felt her jaw tighten at the mention of his name. “Put the bomb on the core. It’s time to finish this,” she turned to the walk way that lead to the rest of Hephaestus, her gun held tightly in her hand, knuckles almost white. “One way or another…”   
  
She heard Jack put the bomb on the core and within seconds everything began to overload. There was blue electricity sparking everywhere in long arks. The ground shook and everything was so loud she swore her ear drums had burst. It was just like the blitz all over again and for a brief moment she wasn’t in Rapture she was stuck, trapped under the rubble. Staring at broken bricks, unable to move, breathing in brick dust and feeling it clog up her lungs. She couldn’t breath. She couldn’t breath, couldn’t breath couldn’t-   
  
_“Christ, what a racket you’re making down there. If you’ve surged the core, then there’s only one more task to be done. Head on back to Ryan’s gate and throw the circuit breaker. That’ll let you right into his place.”_   
  
Ironically and annoyingly, it was Fontaine’s voice that brought her back to the present and she sucked in a breath. Blinking her eye rapidly to get the afterimages of broken London brick work out of her sight. A flash of a wool jumper caught her eye as Jack went racing past her, probably expecting her to follow. She hesitated for a moment, but was soon hot on his trail.   
  
The ground shook, rocks grumbled and fell to the ground, she almost lost her footing a few times with each shake. The splicers were giving it one last attempt to stop them, but Jack seemed to be on a mission, following the pathway back to Ryan’s office and shooting anyone that got in his way. Em hardly needed to fire off a single shot, if anything Jack probably would’ve been fine on his own.   
  
_“Though my physical defences fall, you’ll not defeat me. My strength is not in steel and fire, but in my intellect and will,”_ Ryan yelled down the radio. His voice was so loud she could hear him over the clatter of destruction going on around her. _“You hear me, Atlas?! Andrew Ryan offers you nothing but ashes!”_   
  
They entered the main room just outside Ryan’s office, the rotting bodies hung on the wall and shook with every shudder of Rapture. A whole ambush of splicers were waiting for them, a few even had little whirly birds with them.  
  
“Jack, get to the switch!” She yelled shooting at the splicers. “Go! I’ll cover!”   
  
He ran, dodging bullets and fire balls that were thrown by a few Houdini splicers. Thankfully he destroyed the whirly bird for her and she followed him as best she could through the carnage. He flipped the switch and the doors opened, but he stayed in place shooting the splicers.   
  
Em shook her head and dashed towards him, pushing him towards the door with one hand while she aimed her rifle at the splicers with the other. She couldn’t fire it but it might make them pause for a second.   
  
“You’ve gotta go!”   
  
“But-.”  
  
“Jack!” She glared at him. “Finish this. End it!”   
  
He didn’t want to leave her, she could see it on his face. Bless his heart he was too good for Rapture, he should never have come here.   
  
“Go!” She snapped at him, before offering a small smile. “I’ll be fine.”   
  
Jack nodded and ran through the door and Ryan’s voice cut through the speaker on her radio one final time.   
  
_“In the end, all that matters to me… is me. And all that matters to you… is you. It is the nature of things.”_

* * *

  
Frank sat at the edge of his seat as he watched the carnage unfolded on his many many monitors. Em had taken cover behind Ryan’s bust, while the kid had gone inside to do what he had been built for. The final nail in the coffin and wasn’t there something poetic about it being Ryan’s own kid to do it.   
  
Still, he was nervous. This was the final push and he’d either have Rapture in his pocket or Jack was a waste of money and he needed to come up with an escape plan and fast.   
  
Clayton was standing next to him, his eyes firmly glued to the screen where his mother was busy fighting off splicers. Em really could be a marta sometimes and it looked like that was going to be one of those times. Her mothering instinct had probably kicked in and she was trying to protect Jack. Bleeding hearts all of them, you wouldn’t catch him sacrificing himself for anyone else’s needs. They didn’t come above his own.   
  
Jack had entered the central control, it was dark and then the huge screens lit up with Ryan’s face. The classic hat tipped down with only his mouth and nose visible. Sheesh and people called Frank dramatic.   
  
_“Even in the book of lies, sometimes you find truth,”_ Ryan spoke, sounding oddly calm for a man about the face death. _“There is indeed a season for all things. And now that I see you flesh-to-flesh and blood-to-blood, I know I cannot raise my hand against you. But know this: you are my greatest disappointment.”_   
  
Wait. Did Ryan know who Jack was…? No.. no that was impossible! If he knew who Jack was then he’d know.. he’d know about..   
  
_“Does your master hear me? Atlas!? You can kill me, but you will never have my city! My strength is not in steel and fire! That is what the parasites will never understand. A season for all things: a time to live, and a time to die. A time to build, and a time… TO DESTROY!”_   
  
Fontaine didn’t know what to feel in that moment. Panic at the idea of Ryan figure it out, irritated because the man just had to squeeze in one final speech before he died or fear as he suddenly realised just what Ryan had done.   
  
_“Come now, my child. There is one final thing to discuss.”_   
  
He couldn’t be.. he couldn’t be serious could he?! Was he insane!?   
  
Frank’s eyes drifted to the screen that showcased the room filled with supposed trophies.   
  
Well, that was that answered.   
  
Snatching up the radio he brought it up to his mouth. That little bastard better be ready to get a move on because their very lives depended on it.   
  
“What?! Ryan’s set the core to self-destruct! This is different than what you did, he’s got a mind to take down the whole damned city! Get in there and whack the chump before the whole joint blows!”   
  
He might have slipped into his usual dialect then, but he didn’t give a damn by this point. He doubted the kid would’ve noticed and if he did, he didn’t have time to think it over. He needed to get a move on and kill Ryan, grab the genetic key and stop this sequence and then… Fontaine would be sitting pretty on a fortune. Best not celebrate too early, one thing at a time.   
  
“I hope he’s everything you paid for,” Clayton said, turning to him, his eyes wide and frightened. “Because if he’s not, we’re dead.”

* * *

  
Jack raced up the steps trying to find another way in. The main way for the office of Andrew Ryan was broken and he couldn’t get in if he tried. He’d thought about trying to pry the doors open, but that would take too much time. There had to be another way in and thankfully there was.   
  
He almost rushed passed it he was in such a hurry but there was a vent open and he could crawl through it, hopefully it would lead in the right direction.   
  
He crawled through the vent and jumped down into a room that was littered with papers and documents. Two audio diaries sat in front of him on a small desk that was littered with other documents. Above them were photos of people he.. didn’t know but did know. One of them was himself, so obviously he knew them, but others.. well there was Ryan and Tenenbaum, but.. J  
  
ack stared at them. He felt like he knew them. He felt like if he really concentrated he could probably pinpoint these people and tell you exactly who they were, but that wasn’t the only thing that caught his eye.   
  
Written across the whole board, in dripping red paint was the phrase ‘would you kindly?’. The phrase seemed to call out to him and Jack stared at it. Paused almost like he was waiting… waiting for something. For what he didn’t quite know, but what he was certain of was once he read or.. or heard ‘would you kindly’ something was supposed to come after it. Or before it? Did it matter? So long as that phrase was there it could be anywhere and it would be fine? He’d know what to do.. he’d.. he’d picked up an audio diary.   
  
He didn’t have time for this, the whole city had been set to self destruct and yet.. he had to know…   
  
_“Is that your puppy? She’s very pretty…” “Thank you, Papa Suchong.” “Break her neck for me.” “What?” “Break that Sweet puppy’s neck.” “No… please…” “Break that puppy’s neck.. would you kindly..” “No… no…”_ A whimper. A snap. _“Very good.”_   
  
Jack stumbled and dropped the diary. He stared at it, before he found the second diary in his hands. He should put it down, he shouldn’t hit play. He didn’t need to know, he wasn’t supposed to know.   
  
_“Advanced Deployment, Lot 111 Doctor Suchong/ Client Fontaine Futuristics. Baby is now a year old, weighs 58 pounds, and possess gross musculature of a fit, 19-year-old. The results are… disappointing, but within expected tolerances.”_   
  
It was the same man from before. The one who’d ordered that little boy to kill his puppy. He said the phrase.. the words.. his lessons.. Papa Suchong always said he had to remember his lessons..   
  
Jack shook his head, before gripping at his hair. It felt like his brain was splitting. There were things… memories right at the edge of his consciousness, he.. he needed to grab them, they were within reach..   
  
The room shook and he was reminded that the city could and would blow up any minute if he didn’t get his step on. Jack darted inside the room, Ryan’s office.   
  
The whole room shook, bits of debris crumbled from the ceiling and Jack was ready for anything.. except for finding Ryan playing golf of all things. He looked like he didn’t care that.. he was going to die. Either by fiery explosion or.. however Jack was going to do it. He still didn’t know, he still wasn’t sure..  
  
“The assassin has overcome my final defence and now he’s come to murder me,” Ryan said it so casually, like he was discussing the weather. “In the end, what separates a man, from a slave? Money? Power? No… a man chooses,” he looked to Jack with nothing but contempt. “A slave obeys. You think you have memories,” he said, placing his putter against the floor, leaning on it as he crossed his legs. “A farm. A family. An aeroplane. A crash.” With each word an image appeared in Jack’s head. His farm, his parents, the present, the lighthouse. “And then this place,” Ryan finished, dropping another golf ball onto the floor. “Was there really a family? Did that aeroplane crash or.. was it hijacked?”   
  
Jack was so confused he.. the family.. his parents.. no not his parents.. scientist.. Tenenbaum and Suchong. He was only little, it hurt, it hurt so much, but he had to be perfect. Meet Mister Fontaine’s specifics and he’d still been disappointing, Papa Suchong had said so.   
  
No, no.. where was that coming from he.. he’d never been here.. he… The plane. The present. There had been a gun in the present with.. with the note… Would you kindly not open until.. not Christmas.. those were brackets for coordinates. Rapture’s coordinates.  
  
“Forced down,” Ryan supplied helpfully, almost like he was jogging Jack’s memory. Jack’s real memory. “Forced down by something less than a man, something bred to sleepwalk through life until they’re activated by a simple phrase.. spoken by their kindly master,” Ryan stood up straighter and picked up his club. “Was a man sent to kill, or a slave? A man chooses, a slave obeys.”   
  
Jack watched him through the glass as he walked to his door, leading into the room Ryan was in.   
  
“Come in,” he said simply and Jack’s feet moved without his command, but as soon as he got to Ryan, the man raised his golf club, sticking it under Jack’s chin, tilting it back almost painfully. “Stop, would you kindly… would you kindly..” He pulled the club back an examined it a moment. “Powerful phrase…” he mused before looking at Jack expectantly. “Famillure phrase?”  
  
Jack suddenly got bombarded by all the mental images he’d recored of Rapture, with Atlas’s crooning voice accompanying them. Almost mocking him at this point.   
  
_Would you kindly? Would kindly get this? Would you kindly get- Would you kindly head up to Ryan’s office and kill the son of a bitch._   
  
It was too much. He wanted to collapse to the floor and cry. His head hurt, he didn’t know what was real, he didn’t-   
  
“Sit, would you kindly.” Jack’s legs gave out from under him and he winced when his knees cracked against the hard wooden floor. Ryan was sneering down at him and he placed the golf club under his chin again. “Stand… would you kindly..” And Jack was hopeless to obey. “Run,” he turned on his heel and ran to the other side of the room. “Stop,” he slammed to a halt, rocking on his feet with how sudden it was. “Turn.”   
  
He didn’t want to, but he was already doing it, coming face to face with Ryan who was staring at him like he was some sort of bug in a jar.   
  
Ryan stepped forward raising his golf club. “A man chooses, a slave obeys!” Jack thought he was going to strike him with it, but in stead he turned it around in his fingers and held the club out to him.   
  
Jack took the club automatically and held it up like a weapon as he stared at Ryan waiting for the inevitable.   
  
“Kill.”   
  
He swung and the club struck Ryan across the head. He stumbled, but stayed standing, looking up at with blood dripping down his face.   
  
“A man chooses!”   
  
Jack swung again and almost sent Ryan to the floor, but that man still remained standing.   
  
“A slave.. obeys…”   
  
Another swing and finally Ryan fell to the floor, but he wasn’t dead. Using the last of his strength he pulled himself up using Jack as a support before staring up at Jack defiantly.   
  
“Obey!”  
  
Jack swung the golf club one final time and the end snapped off, embedded in Ryan’s head. Blood sprayed across Jack’s face, but he didn’t flinch. Only watched as Ryan fell backwards and lay on the floor. He didn’t get up again. He didn’t make any other passing remark. He had chosen to die and in sense.. he had won.   
  
_“Hurry now, grab Ryan’s genetic key!”_ Atlas yelled down the radio, desperation in his voice. _“Now would you kindly put it in that goddamn machine?!”_   
  
He moved against his will again, rifled through Ryan’s pockets and came across the key. It gleamed in the light, beautiful and gold, yet so very powerful. This tiny thing controlled Rapture’s fate.  
  
Jack ran through into the other room, up the central control which had a design of Rapture built into it. A slot lay in wait for the key to put in place and carefully Jack did as he had been told.   
  
Almost as soon as he’d done it, he knew he’d made a mistake. He shouldn’t of done that.. he shouldn’t of given a man like Atlas this kind of power… a man like Atlas… _who was Atlas?_   
  
_“Nice work, boyo!”_  
  
The voice wasn’t right.. it was a mockery of an Irish accent it.. it wasn’t right. This wasn’t right!   
  
Laughter followed the mockery, deep and loud, slowly getting louder and sounding like someone who’d just won the biggest prize at the game. At the same time, the laughter was verging on insanity. Maybe a little bit of relief too, like whoever this was couldn’t believe they’d finally won.   
  
_“It’s time to end this little masquerade,”_ That voice. Jack knew that voice he’d head it. Only once, but he’d heard it.. it.. _“There ain’t no Atlas, kid. Never was. Fella’ in my line a work takes on a variety of aliases. Hell, once I was even a Chinaman for six months.”_ The man drawled, boasted? It was hard to tell.   
  
Jack’s head was swimming, he knew that voice. He knew who this was… he.. knew it, but he couldn’t… no it couldn’t be.. it couldn’t!   
  
_“But you’ve been a sport, so I guess I owe you a little honesty. The name’ s Frank Fontaine.”_

* * *

  
_Clayton Lokken_   
  
_Enough:_   
  
_Clayton: Haven’t you done enough?! Everyone’s dead, isn’t that enough for you?!_   
  
_Fontaine: You’re a kid, you wouldn’t understand._   
  
_Clayton: No one would understand!_   
  
_Fontaine: Shut it, Clay. You’re on thin ice._   
  
_Clayton: You’re a monster… why did I never see it…_   
  
_Fontaine: Cause yous saw what you wanted to see. You wanted to see a shining hero. A-_   
  
_Clayton: No. Why didn’t I see you before… why didn’t I see what a monster you were when you were Fontaine…_   
  
_Fontaine: Don’t beat ya’self up too much, kid. Gotta say, you came awful close a few times.. heh, guess I taught ya too well._   
  
_Clayton: Why teach me, then? All those lessons… you even showed me how to shoot- why?!_   
  
_Fontaine: Well.. I needed to do somethin’ to entertain myself._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
